And Eyes That I Might See
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: The Autobots get cornered in a canyon after a Decepticon attack, along with a handful of humans. Unfortunately, Amanda is blind, making things a little harder for her. How's a girl to manage when she can't even see the giant robot aliens who rescued her?
1. Chapter 1

**And Eyes That I Might See**  
**By Dreaming of Everything**

**Disclaimer**: All I own is the story itself and Amanda. All the rest belongs to other people/huge multi-national corporations.

**Timeline**: Based off of the 2007 movie, because that's what I'm familiar with. I've borrowed characters from other canons (mostly, if not all, G1) but—and this is important—**do not claim to actually be writing them**. This is my interpretation of their basic personality, sometimes altered a bit. Feel free to yell at me for this. Basically, though, I'm doing what the movie did, only I don't get nearly as much money. Or cool special effects.

**Author's Notes**: Inspired by a post on the LJ community tf2007fun. That was actually about deafness, but that was a bit much for me to tackle… This seemed easier.

Amanda _is_ an OC, I'm afraid.

Why is this set in Portland, Oregon? Because I've been to Portland. Simple as that.

**Edited to fix a bad, bad typo on my part and an iffy continuity error. Thank you, Riana1, Annonymouse and CaravanKa!**

**Important Note and Edit: **This started out as a oneshot, but **isn't**. It has been and will be continued. I'm sorry for any confusion this causes!

oOoOoOo

The first thing she noticed as she swam back to consciousness was the feeling of a wet cloth against her arm.

Someone was washing her, she realized with some alarm. Thankfully, her clothes were still on. She relaxed, even if only marginally.

There was the buzz of conversation a ways off, far enough away that the noise was on the edges of her hearing. She thought that they might be closer than they sounded, because there was a distorted sound to the noise, as if the sound reflected oddly off of the walls enclosing wherever-she-was, or maybe they were speaking through some sort of radio or something.

She tried to move out of the uncomfortable, sprawling position she was in, and whimpered involuntarily. She felt like one big mass of bruises, and was probably an interesting mottled purple color from head to toe, with contrasting patches of yellow-green in the less-battered places.

She had _no idea_ what had happened. She'd been at home, minding her own business, working on her essay like a _good_ girl (and that had been out of the ordinary—she spent much more time procrastinating than she did actually working) when the ground had started shaking—not like it was an earthquake, more like someone had decided to take down a building in the area. Before she had really had the chance to figure out what had been going on, her neighbor-two-doors-down-on-the-right had started hammering on her door as if to break it down, and then half-pulled, half-pushed, half-shepherded her outside, yelling explanations she had only half-caught as they went. The stairs down to the ground floor had been packed with people. There had been something about an attack…?

Once outside there had been a cacophony of noises—people talking loudly, yes, but also strange grinding, scraping and crunching noises, and explosions, all added on top of the noises of too many people flooding the streets, half of them trying to get an impression of what was going on and the other half trying to leave.

And then it had all dissolved into screaming and running. She'd clung to the streetlight pole she had been next to, not wanting to get swept away in the crowd to somewhere where she wouldn't know where she was. It hadn't helped much. The area had cleared out surprisingly quickly, and then there had been more of those strange noises—louder, this time—and then nothing. She assumed she'd been hit by a piece of rubble, or something. She _felt_ like half a building had fallen on her.

Another stab at actually moving out of the position she was in brought another moan. There was the sounds of feet hurrying over towards her.

"Are you okay?" said a concerned male voice, young—a little younger than her—and slightly tired-sounding. "You were knocked unconscious during the fight, so I'm supposed to check for concussion. Can you see straight?"

"Not really. I'm blind," she heard herself saying, possibly on automatic. Could you get a sense of humor surgically removed? The idea was worth looking into. "What's this about a fight?"

"_Blind_?" said the voice, with all the horror she had come to expect. Forget all that 'milky blue eyes' shit—her eyes, she had been told, were brown and looked perfectly normal, until you started poking around from an optometrist's viewpoint. No physical clues—except the fact that she couldn't see—and certainly nothing beautifully tragic. Or tragically beautiful.

"Yeah. Seriously, though what happened? You mentioned a fight? Because I didn't think that the US had pissed anyone off that badly recently, and I _suppose_ it could be terrorists, unlikely as that may seem…"

There were a few moments of shocked and horrified silence. "Well. There was a Decepticon attack—not that that means anything to you, okay. Um. So, do you know what happened in Mission City?"

"I'm blind, not deaf or stupid."

"Er… Sorry. What's your name, again?"

"It's Amanda. Would you _please_ explain what happened to me? And where I am now?"

"Okay. I'm Sam Witwicky. So, there's these two factions of warring robots, the Autobots and the Decepticons. They've been fighting for thousands of years, and finally ended up on earth, where this cube called the Allspark is, and there was a big battle that ended up taking place in Mission City. The government hushed it up, but I don't think it's going to work for long. We thought we had defeated the Decepticons, but it turns out that we really hadn't. There haven't been any really big battles until just now, though—and that's what was happening in Portland, where you got involved in all this. We think you got hit by some flying debris—we found you half covered in dust and gravel."

"Hooooly _fuck_. Do you seriously think it's funny to go around telling stories like that? Because I, for one, am pretty freaked out here. _You_ try being knocked unconscious in some sort of an emergency and then waking up somewhere—you have no idea where—with some person with a batshit crazy explanation about _evil robots from outer space_ and see how calm you feel. I don't know about where you come from, but taking advantage of someone like this is inhuman—I have _no idea where I am!_ For all I know, you're filming this so you can watch it later, or post it to YouTube, or something, I don't even know what's in the room, you could be _naked_ for God's sake and I wouldn't know—"

"I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_! But it's the truth! I'm not going to _lie_ to you!"

"Would you just let me go _home,_ please? I'm not rich by any means but I can pay you something, if that's what you want…"

"Well, um, we _would_ bring you home, but the Decepticons have us cornered in this valley… We're stuck here for a few days while Ratchet—that's their medic—fixes up the wounded Autobots to the best of his ability. Then we'll try to fight our way out, if we haven't come up with a better means of escape."

"Stop _talking_ about this! I don't want to hear your crazy fantasies!"

"Hey! Sam!" called a voice—it was closer than the two indistinct ones from earlier had been, but it still sounded like it came from a fair distance away, and it was oddly high up, like someone speaking from a ladder. "Ratchet asked me—okay, told me—to ask you if everything was going okay in here, and to say that Mikaela's looking for you if you're not too busy."

"Sure. Things can be okay if you want them to be. She's blind, Sideswipe, and she won't believe any of my explanations about the Transformers at all, and she just wants to go home. Hell. Don't we all? Last night I woke up with raccoons on my face."

"Blind…? _Primus_. That's awful. Seriously, there's nothing you can do to fix that?"

"Shut up," muttered Amanda indistinctly. "I don't care if you want to indulge what's-his-face's crazy fantasies, but I'm not interested in helping. And what sort of name is 'Sideswipe,' anyways?"

"_My_ sort of name. What sort of name is 'Amanda?'"

"The sort of name that's not a type of accident."

"Seriously, guys, don't get into it. Amanda, what sort of evidence would it take to make you believe me?"

"A hell of a lot more than your say-so. Other than that, I'm not sure, not having been in this sort of situation before." Amanda's voice was bitter, with an edge of panic.

"Sideswipe, get over here." The ground began to shudder, and Amanda's mind flashed instantly to the odd vibrations that had started off this incident in the first place.

They stopped a short distance away from her, and Amanda hauled herself to her feet, ignoring the painful bruises. She thought that she disguised the pained whimpers that wanted to escape her mouth fairly well, all things told.

Carefully, she walked forward until the hand she'd put out in front of her ran into a smooth metal surface, slightly angled. Running both of her hands along it, she continued it up as far as she could manage before turning her explorations further down. It _did_ seem to be a gigantic robotic foot.

The implications were startling.

"Here!" said "Sideswipe's" voice brightly. "It doesn't look like you can feel very much like that."

And then giant metal bands were closing around her, implacable and firm enough that, ordinarily, it would have been slightly uncomfortable; it was Hell against her bruises. She felt her feet leave the ground and the bottom drop out of her stomach as she was lifted, and a scream tore itself out of her throat at the sudden realization that she was very, _very_ high up in the air.

She was placed, surprisingly gently, on what felt like a platform of sorts, not that it did much good—her feet collapsed out from under her about as soon as she was set down. She sat down with an explosion of panicked breath.

Sure enough, the metal 'platform' she was on felt remarkably like fingers, complete with complex joints where the knuckles would be, only vastly increased in size.

"Sideswipe!" Sam was yelling loudly from somewhere below her. Somewhere _far_ below her. "Put her _down!_ You can't just do that to people without any warning! She can't even see what you're doing!"

"Fine, fine," grumbled Sideswipe, finally putting her down. Amanda scrambled to get off of the hand, panting with nerves. She wished, vainly, for a wall to press herself against.

"Oh God," she finally managed to gasp out.

There was an indistinct yell from a ways away. "I'm _coming!_" bellowed Sideswipe. "See you, Sam. Sorry 'bout that, Amanda." Again, there were those vibrations, although they were moving further away, this time.

There were a few long, silent moments.

"Okay, I might believe you," said Amanda finally.

--End--


	2. Chapter 2

**And Eyes That I Might See  
****Part Two  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Transformers in any of its numerous incarnations. The only thing I'm claiming is Amanda (and any other OCs who may occur) and the plot itself.

**Author's Notes:** Did you know that nail files are the best tool there is for getting pine needles (well, fir needles, really) out of your keyboard? Because I didn't, until today. (I discovered it with the power of SCIENCE!!)

You know, this _was_ supposed to be a oneshot. As it turns out, it isn't. Who knew? I didn't. I have at least one more bit planned out, possibly two, and that's not even covering introductions…

I'd like to blame Epona Harper, Cavaranka, the anonymice Caz, who I think might be cazcatharsis on LJ (if so, hi!), zoaerven, darknessdivine, sosurrealrawr, jimghote, and probably the entirety of tf2007fun over on Livejournal for good measure, for making me continue this. Thanks!

This bit in particular was directly inspired by devilishkurumi, with important input by tainry.. Thank you, you two!

Special thanks for Riana1, who likes my OCs. :D

**Edited** 12-10-07 for hideous errors. (Well, one of them, at least.) Thank you, CavaranKa and lucidscreamer!

oOoOoOo

"Can I help you?" Sam asked.

"I can walk a straight line just fine on my own!" Amanda snapped back. "I'm sorry, actually," she said after a few minutes of quiet. "I'm just—not in a good mood today."

"It's okay. My own experience meeting the Transformers… Yeah. Do you usually have a seeing-eye dog to help you with this?"

"Nope. I can't. Allergies. I've never liked dogs very much anyways."

"I've got a dog—a Chihuahua. His name's Mojo."

"I can't say I've ever been a fan of Chihuahuas. They fall under my little-yappy-dogs category. Can you tell me where we are?"

"Like I said, we're trapped in a valley. There's a pretty good number of Autobots here, and maybe 10 humans, maximum. That's good—there's _some _food, but not too much. Hopefully, this won't take more than a few days. Ratchet—I already told you he's the medic, right?—has his patients stuck in a cave behind us—we just came out of the mouth of it, actually. The humans are sleeping in a smaller cave on the other side of the canyon. You'd been put in the big cave so he could keep an eye on you."

"What can you tell me about the—the Autobots, right?"

"Yeah, that's right. Well… There's 12 Autobots here on earth right now, and—and I did tell you that they can transform, right?"

"No. No, you didn't. _Transform _? Into _what _"

"Cars, mostly. There's jets, trucks, cell phones, helicopters… Mechanical things. There was an evil Mountain Dew machine running around for a while."

"They must come in a variety of sizes then, not just really, really big. Unless they're, like, really giant cell phones?"

"Nope, you got it right the first time."

"That's—so weird. And _creepy_. You mean you could be _in _one of them and never even notice it? Or using one of them…"

"Yeah. That's what happened with me and Bee—Bumblebee, he's my guardian. I mean, there were some things that were off—he kept on messing around with the radio, and still does, matter of fact, and he set me up with my girlfriend, and he pulled some funny stuff at the car dealership—but I didn't suspect a thing until I actually _saw _him in his transformed state, and when he started chasing me down the street, in car-form. But without a driver."

"… _gah_. You said there were twelve of them? That—doesn't sound like very many. Of course, at the same time it sounds like a hell of a lot…"

"We have been scattered across the universe during our fights with the Decepticons," rumbled a voice slightly behind her and to her left.

Amanda shrieked and spun in the direction of the voice, caught totally off-guard. It was clearly one of the robots—the voice was too high up to be anything else, and with those weird harmonics. Not that turning in its direction was going to help, she thought vaguely. It wasn't like she was going to be able to see it either way. See… _him_, she supposed. It certainly seemed to be a male voice. Did giant alien robots have genders?

The fast, half-panicked movement unbalanced her, and the soft dirt and slight slope of the canyon floor where they were only made the problem worse. She teetered for a few seconds, trying to regain her balance, before she felt arms—human arms, presumably Sam's—reach out to steady her.

"Thank you," she squeaked, possibly running on automatic.

"Okay. Amanda, this is Mirage. Mirage, this is Amanda—"

"I'm sorry for startling you," said the voice—Mirage. Weird sort of name. Not that _all_ of this didn't feel like one huge hallucination, possibly brought on by extreme brain damage. There was a slight pause and, briefly, the sensation of heat—which was odd. It was the wrong direction and intensity for sunlight, and there wasn't anything else it would make sense for it to be—unless the robot (the Autobot, she reminded herself) had just kind of heated up at random. "I hadn't thought. I forget that a disembodied voice would be startling."

Oh. "Word must get around here fast," said Amanda.

"What?" said Mirage, sounding slightly confused.

"Amanda, Mirage can turn invisible. Mirage, Amanda can't see you no matter _what _you do—she's blind."

"Ohhhh," said Amanda. That explained something. "Wait. Invisible? How does that work? Is the heat that I just felt part of it?"

"The heat is a side effect of releasing the invisibility field. This form is designed to match the outside temperature, so that it doesn't show up on any scans, but the field has an increased temperature. The excess heat is stored, and then released in a short burst when I end the program."

"Actually, on reflection, it's probably for the best if I don't ask how that works. It sounds—complicated."

There was a brief pause.

"Um, Mirage? She really can't see you. Body language doesn't help," Sam said.

"Again, I apologize. If you ever change your mind, I would be willing to explain it. You really can't see anything? Don't you have ways to correct the problem?"

"Thank you for the offer. To answer your question—well, some forms of vision issues can be corrected. Mine can't—it's just the way I am. I've learned to deal with it." Amanda's voice trailed off a little. "This is all a little intimidating, though" she said, almost as if to herself.

"We should probably keep on going," said Sam after a few more minutes of silence. "Now that we know who you are, we can get information out that you're okay."

"It was nice to meet you," said Mirage.

"—yeah, you too? That is, I mean, it was a pleasure."

"Follow me," Sam said, his voice moving away from her.

"Where are you?" said Amanda with a sigh. "I can get a general idea, but nothing more than that…"

"Oh—oh my God. I'm so sorry. I totally didn't mean to— Would you mind if I led you, maybe? If it would make things easier for you…"

"Okay, fine." Amanda sighed. "I _hate _being led. And people ask why I don't get out much…"

"If you don't like it that much…"

"No, it's probably a good idea. I'm just too stubborn for my own good. Could you walk a little bit slower? I'm a city girl born and bred, and all this loose, crumbly dirt is making me miss honest concrete."

"Sure—of course! I'm sorry."

--end part 2--


	3. Chapter 3

**And Eyes That I Might See  
****Chapter Three  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers in whole or in part, in any of its various incarnations. This is a fanmade work, and I am earning no profit from its creation. On the other hand, plagiarizing is of the devil. (Not really. The devil hates plagiarizes, too.)

**Author's Notes**: This one's for Epona Harper, who mentioned something having to do with Ratchet being irked by unfixable blindness. I was… Inspired. She's bad like that.

Also, thanks to CaravanKa--okay. Let's be honest. When do I _not_ owe Epona Harper and CavaranKa?--and lucidscreamer for catching my stupid, stupid typos in the last chapter. Thank you, you two! And thanks to Riana1, just on the principle that she is awesome, and deserves some thanks at this point.

This fic now has something like a very, very vague outline, and looks to be about 9 chapters long when all finished—possibly with an epilogue, for a grand total of 10. But probably not. (Just you wait. This will turn into a 50-chapter epic. I am totally not joking. Mostly. But see how 'oneshot for sure and for definite' led to 'nine chapters, maybe ten' within two updates?)

oOoOoOo

The two of them—Sam and Amanda—half-staggered on the slight path they were following.

"Are you sure we're on a trail?" said Amanda warily.

"Well, for a given extent of 'trail.' I think it's actually a deer track…"

"Whatever it is, it can't be any smoother walking than any other terrain they have around here."

"You'd be surprised, I think."

"Scary thought. Oh, how I miss the city… All this fresh air's probably wreaking havoc with my lungs, no less."

There was a slight pause as Sam tried to make her words make sense.

"They'll get used to not killing themselves with every fresh breath I take, and they'll have to readjust when I get back—assuming that I get back—which will be annoying."

"Don't worry—You'll get back," said Sam confidently.

"Why would you think that? This situation hardly fills me with confidence."

"I've been in tighter situations, and we've managed out of those just fine."

"So confident!"

"Oh, ye of little faith," came a third voice, off to the right—it was a nice voice, Amanda thought, warm and amused, the owner on the younger side of middle-aged, she guessed.

"Sarah!" said Sam happily.

"Huh?" said Amanda.

"Amanda, this is Sarah. She's the wife of the technically unofficial but more official than I am military envoy and diplomat to the Autobots. Basically, Will was one of the first people attacked by the Decepticons so he ended up involved in the whole save-the-world bit, and then one of the Autobots ended up moving in with him, Sarah and Annabelle—that's their baby—after it was all finished. Please don't tell Ironhide I said that, Sarah? And Sarah, this is Amanda. She's blind."

"I don't introduce you as 'And Person, this is Sam. He can see,'" muttered Amanda. "Jesus. You'd think I don't have a personality, or something. Or any other distinguishing features…"

"It's nice to meet you," said Sarah politely.

"You, too," said Amanda. "I'm sorry, I'm kind of disgruntled at the moment."

"Yes, the Autobots can do that. You should have seen me the day I got introduced to 'Hide—"

Sam coughed slightly. Sarah back-tracked. "Or, er, not have seen me, I suppose. Sorry about that, I've never…"

"Met a blind person?" said Amanda, sounding like she was torn between being caustic and being simply amused. "Because yes, it shows. As a blind person, I, personally, am highly offended by a metaphorical and idiomatic use of the word 'see.' I can't believe you would be so incredibly insensitive as to use it."

Sarah burst out laughing. Sam joined in, a few seconds later. Amanda let a slight grin show on her face.

"So you're off to see Ratchet?" Sarah asked after a short while, still chuckling a little.

"I guess?" said Amanda.

"Yes," said Sam. "Do you know where he is? He wasn't over in the main cave, and he promised me holy hell if I didn't get everyone checked out by him once they woke up—"

"He's by the river with Ironhide. I just came back from there, myself. Do you want me to take over watching the rest of the humans?"

"Well, I guess they found 'Hide's leg. And yes, that'd be great. Thanks, Sarah! Oh, and if you see Mikaela, would you tell her where I am? And she'd probably like a few tips about how to deal with the baby, if you have the time. I think it's got her kind of freaking out, and Bee just plain isn't helping with that. I mean, I thought _I_ was skittish around kids…"

"Yeah, Ironhide's the same. I had just assumed it was his personality, though—_you_ know. Maybe it's an Autobot thing, though? Huh. A whole race of giant transforming alien robots, afraid of infants. It's remarkably poetic."

"So, why's everybody asleep?" interjected Amanda. "I could understand it if one or two people had gotten concussions, what with all the rubble falling everywhere and everything, but all—what did you say? Ten or so?—people? That sounds pretty hard to swallow."

"Uhm, Ratchet kind of drugged you all," said Sam quickly, words all running together with his haste.

"He _what?_" said Amanda.

"Well, we needed to get everyone out of there, and we couldn't deal with everyone panicking, but it's hard to deal with the Transformers for the first time without panicking—"

"—from what I can tell, your first reaction was down-right graceful compared to most people's," said Sarah. "Especially considering that Sideswipe was your first contact. Sorry 'bout that…"

"—and we didn't have time for explanations, which is the _only_ way it would work," continued Sam, "So we ended up drugging everyone. Um. Ratchet promises that it has no side effects? And he's good at what he does."

Amanda growled unhappily.

oOo

Amanda yelped as she skidded down the last few steep feet of hillside. Carefully, feeling the ground in front of her with a toe, she took a few steps forward, giving Sam the space to follow her.

She imagined the area they were in was very pretty. As things were, it smelled gorgeous, the air very clear and clean, and crisp here, where the wind was blowing off of the river. The forest smelled faintly of dirt, dirt and pine trees in sunlight and cold air, and was exciting to walk around in, if alarmingly pointy.

Now her hands smelled overwhelmingly of pine. It would have been nice, except that it had a lot to do with the large gobs of sap ground into her palms from where she had tripped and caught herself against the trunk of a tree. And her slide down the hill had pressed dirt into the sap, making an almost impenetrable layer over patches of her palm. Amanda imagined it was what having really thick calluses would feel like, or possibly numb palms.

"So, why are we coming all the way over here, again?" muttered Amanda irascibly. Her feet were feeling already damp, but she couldn't feel any ground near her that was dryer and less muddy than the patch she was standing on.

"Didn't you hear earlier?" said Sam, sounding faintly surprised. "Oh. Guess not. Sorry about that… And, um, you're standing in some sort of marshy spot… It's a bit drier over here, towards your left."

Amanda started picking her way over towards the sound of Sam's voice, moving slowly and feeling her way with the toe of her shoe. At least she hadn't been wearing pumps—or a pair of sandals, even worse—when she had been dragged outside. Tennis shoes were marginally more comfortable although, she was realizing, mesh let in an uncomfortable amount of water.

"A little more to your left will keep you out of a puddle. Yeah. Ratchet's with Ironhide, who's immobile at the moment—he lost a leg when—"

"He _what_?" cut in Amanda, voice horrified.

"No, no, it's not as bad as it sounds! Robots, remember? Although I think someone was saying something about how the term 'mech' works better, or something… But Ratchet got to him quickly and got him stabilized, even if he couldn't be moved, and now somebody's found his leg and got it to him, so Ratchet can fix him. It's really not all that big a deal—at least, not compared to what it would be with a human."

"Urgh," said Amanda faintly.

"What?" said Sam.

"My mind keeps on skipping when it reaches 'somebody's found his leg.' Some phrases just shouldn't be heard before breakfast… Or before whatever meal it is, at least. Any idea what time it is?"

"Uh… Midday-ish? I don't have a watch on. The Autobots are more accurate. Okay, I'm going to step forward to meet you, okay? It gets pretty rough over here, and we've got a little ways to go before we run into Ratchet."

"And we're going to go meet Ratchet because he's the medic, and he wants to check up on all of us."

"Yeah, that's it."

"…after he drugged us all senseless."

"Uh, yeah, that too."

"Riiight."

The two walked silently for a while.

"So, who's this Ironhide person? Are all the Autobot names this, um…"

"Weird? Yeah. Apparently they pick them, and it has something to do with how Cybertronian names translate into English—although there aren't direct equivalents for a lot of things, of course."

"Ah. Cybertronian?"

"The Autobots and the Decepticons are from the planet Cybertron."

"_Cybertron_? Are you _serious_? It's… That's… It's like an incredibly bad sci-fi movie! Where all the planets have…" Amanda seemed to be fighting to control hysterical giggles. "Have names like 'Cybertron'…!"

Sam coughed slightly to cover his own laughter. "Anyways, Ironhide's one of the first five Autobots to land on Earth. Bumblebee was first, and then Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide. Optimus Prime's the leader, Ratchet's the medic, as you know, and Ironhide's the weapons specialist. Don't freak out if he threatens to shoot you, okay? He does it to everyone, but, far as I know, he's only ever shot at Decepticons. Optimus would never allow it."

"And… Jazz?"

"Jazz was Optimus' first lieutenant."

"Was? Oh. _Oh_. I'm sorry. How…?"

"Okay. The Autobots came to Earth following the Decepticons, who were following the Allspark, which basically landed here by accident. The Allspark was… Well, it created new Cybertronian life, basically. The Decepticons were planning on using it to turn all the mechanical things on Earth—cell phones, cars, soda vending machines—into little miniature Decepticons hell-bent on killing all human life. With me so far?"

"Holy _shit._" There was a brief pause. "Soda vending machines?"

"Uh, yeah. Far as we know, it's still out there somewhere… The X-Box was more aggressive, we got that one."

"…Someday, I will learn to stop asking questions."

"So, a super-secret government agency called Sector 7—you follow the news? There was a bit about how it was being ended a while ago—was keeping the Allspark and Megatron hidden under the Hoover Dam."

"Megatron?"

"Oh! Right. Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons. He's dead now, thank God, but I'll get to that later. So, Sector 7 figures out that I'd had contact with one of the Autobots, although they didn't know what the Autobots were. They'd—well, my grandfather, actually—found Megatron frozen under ice in the Antarctic, which forces Cybertronians into kind of a dormant state. They were keeping him frozen, which is why he hadn't busted out of the dam and killed everybody already. They were calling him NBE 1, for Non-Biological Extraterrestrial. I _think_.

"So, they captured me and Bumblebee—this is after the rest of the first wave of Autobots had shown up—and brought me, plus Mikaela, to the dam. Then we end up talking them into working for the _right_ side, so they let us loose and let us collect Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots to head to Mission City, where we head off the Decepticons, who'd woken up Megatron. We've got the Allspark at this point. Following all this so far?"

"…maybe?"

"Good enough, I guess. I certainly didn't have that good a handle on events when the actual thing was going down. So, the Autobots and the Decepticons have a huge battle. At the end of it, I end up shoving the Allspark into Megatron's heart—well, it's not really a heart, but it's kind of the Cybertronian equivalent, from what I can tell—which kills him and destroys the Allspark. But Jazz was killed in the battle."

"Good _god_."

"I'll have to tell you the full version later—I left out all the bits with the glasses and my grandfather and meeting Mikaela. She's my girlfriend."

"Right. That was… the cliff notes, essentially?"

"Yeah."

"That's ridiculous. What's that noise?"

"I think it's probably Ratchet and Ironhide. I can't really hear it. They should be just over this hill. The ground's going to get harder to maneuver, though—it's all torn up from the battle."

Amanda promptly gave a short scream as she tripped over a large rut in the ground, clutching at Sam as she started to fall.

"Hyah! Agh. Um, sorry, Sam."

"No problem. See what I mean, though?"

"See? Well, not really. No, don't react, I'm joking. _Joking_!"

"Your sense of humor is seriously messed up."

"Yeah, that's what my therapist told me. That's a joke as well, for the record."

"You sure?"

"Reasonably. I—"

"Damn it, Ratchet!" bellowed a voice, startlingly close to the two humans. Amanda started, nearly losing her balance again.

"Need to stop doing that," she muttered.

"Hey, Ironhide, Ratchet!" Sam called out. "This is Amanda. And since you told me to make sure you check everyone over when they wake up, Ratchet…"

"Good, good. Ironhide, stay where you are. Amanda, hm? Right."

There was a brief, intense silence. "You're being scanned," Sam explained. Amanda stood still, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around her defensively. "Ratchet, Amanda's blind."

"Hello, nice to meet you, too," muttered the girl.

"Ah, that would explain the anomaly I was reading in the report… How severely did you hit your head, Amanda? Do you remember?"

"Um. I think it was mostly my _body_ that got hit, and that's mostly just bruises. The blindness has kind of been a thing of mine for a while…"

There was a rush of air, and the slight mechanical noises she had come to interpret as Autobot movement were suddenly a _lot_ closer. She took an instinctive step back, then another, shying away.

"Huh. Odd. Did you choose this, or…?"

"Not much choosing to do. It's just something I have to live with. I think there's some research into a few things that might help, eventually, but it's all highly experimental and mostly just theories and conjecture, at this point." She shrugged. "It's really not all that bad." There was another brief pause. "At least, it's really not all that bad until you're plunged into a bad science fiction movie in the middle of the woods. I'm sorry, it's been a long day, despite the fact that I haven't been awake an hour."

"Ratchet? Would you _fix_ me? You know, like you're _supposed to be doing_…?"

"Just stay still. Nothing's going to happen to Sarah in the middle of an Autobot camp with no threat of attacks. I give you full permission to dismember anyone who lets her come to harm while you're waiting a while."

There was a few more minutes of silence. Amanda shifted uncomfortably. The Autobots were incredibly imposing—especially this one, Ratchet, with his intense focus. And she kept on wondering if specialized robot vision and 'scanning' meant that he could see through her clothes.

"It seems like there should be something to reverse the irregularities," muttered Ratchet finally. "Maybe… I'll need to talk to Wheeljack."

"_No_," said Sam firmly.

"What?" said Amanda. She must have missed a connecting sentence in the conversation, or something, because she was utterly lost.

"Whenever Wheeljack and Ratchet start cooperating, things stop exploding and start going wrong in _worse_ ways. Wheeljack by himself just means that things blow up, but I have no idea what would end up happening if they decide to come up with a cure for blindness…"

Amanda gulped audibly.

"We're not that bad," said Ratchet mildly.

"Yes, you are," said Sam with an air of finality.

"Not," said Ratchet.

"Gonna have to agree with the kid on this one, Ratchet," said Ironhide.

"Shut up, Ironhide," said Ratchet loftily. "May I remind you that your leg is not attached at the moment?"

"I like how I am totally not a part of this decision in any way, shape or form," said Amanda loudly.

"It'll be fine for the moment, at least," said Sam comfortingly. He patted her shoulder briefly. "Without an actual lab, they're pretty limited in what they can do."

"Oh, you really know how to comfort a girl. Tell me, was it that sort of sweet talk that won you that girlfriend you were talking about?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that it was saving the world. Or possibly my car."

"…Ah. I get it now," said Amanda. "Because of the whole… Right. Now that I've been fully checked out, can I have something to eat?"

"Yes," said Ratchet—his voice had retreated, closer to where 'Ironhide' was, Amanda thought. It was hard to tell, though—those _harmonics_. They kept on messing her up.

"Don't listen to him, you don't need his permission to eat."

"Keep in mind, Sam, that I am in a position to cut off your food ration altogether."

"Not if Bee has anything to say about it."

"Bumblebee is _lower_ than me in rank, Sam."

"Damn."

"Damn you and your earth logic," Amanda muttered quietly to herself.

"What?" said Sam, turning to her.

"Ah, pay me no mind. Quoting to myself, more or less. It seemed appropriate. Food, please?"

"Sure. Okay, now we need to go back the way we came…"

"_Argh_. That _hill_."

"Yeah, back up the hill."

"And through the woods, to Grandmother's house, I suppose." Amanda's voice was resigned.

"Well, to the place we've got food stored, really, but Grandmother's house works just as well. Okay, there's a large hole slightly behind you and to your right, so be careful when you turn around—I'm going to have to go around it, it's up to my waist with a few inches of water in the bottom. Not fun. Okay, that's fine—you've got plenty of room before you run into it—Why do you keep on sticking your foot out?"

"To feel what's there, doofus."

"_Doofus?_"

"Yes. Doofus." Amanda giggled.

"Were you dropped on your head as a child, or something?"

"Yes. It's why I'm blind."

There was a stunned silence. Ratchet made a slight noise neither of the two humans could fully interpret.

"Oh my _God_ I'm so sorry—" Sam began.

"Joking, remember?"

Ironhide laughed out loud.

--End Chapter 3--


	4. Chapter 4

**And Eyes That I Might See  
****Chapter Four  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Transformers in any way, shape or form. I merely borrow (and twist and pull and shift and reinterpret) to suit my own purposes.

**Author's Notes:** This was going to be Bumblebee's chapter, but ended up being Optimus when someone mentioned it--sorry, I forget who! Tell me if you know who you are. Thank you! (For the record, Bumblebee's been bumped to chapter 6, and Wheeljack's now chapter 5. He just didn't work for the set-up in the fifth chapter, and so it needed to be a different character… Nobody really cares about this, do they? On with the fic!) (Okay, my inspirer most probably identified as **lucidscreamer**, which sounds about right to both people. Thank you, lucidscreamer!)

**Edited 10-28-07 for hideous, hideous mistakes.** Think Freudian slips, only stupider. Thank you, Falcon-Rider, Mujamo and lucidscreamer! (Dreaming of Everything: sucking less because of fantastic reviewers.)

oOoOoOo

"So, you mentioned a baby?" said Amanda. She was sitting against some sort of large rock or boulder with Sam, eating. Lunch had turned out to be a kind of iffy apple and a soggy sandwich, but she was appreciative none-the-less. She had been positively _hollow_.

"We found her along with an older woman. We don't know her name, so it's just 'Baby' right now. We—the three humans here already familiar with the Autobots—are looking after her. She's with Mikaela and Sarah right now."

"And, apparently, you have formula along with all the food."

"Not… Exactly. Sarah's feeding her."

"Oh. Baby of her own?"

"Yeah, back home. Actually, it's a miracle her husband hasn't come barging in here already, looking for her."

"Does he know what's happened?"

"Definitely. Transformers are all Internet and text-message capable, apparently. It's very handy."

"…Does anybody know what's happened to _me?_"

"We have your name, now, so the authorities have been informed. A few people pretty high up the chain of command have been told about the Autobots and everything, and so they know about the situation and are covering this all up. You'll probably have to swear to secrecy before you go, but other than that everything should be fine. Nobody'll ever know any better."

"Except for me. And, if you'll excuse me for saying so, this situation is making me perhaps a little paranoid."

Sam paused for a second before answering.

"Oh," he said, cryptically.

"What?" said Amanda. His tone hadn't sounded particularly like he'd been responding to her.

"I think somebody else's woken up. Hey there!"

"Hello," said a new voice—young and female, Amanda guessed, probably about her age. It was quiet and subdued, but that didn't mean much—assuming that the girl'd met the Autobots, 'subdued' could simply mean she was still bowled over in a state of shock.

"I'm Sam, and this is Amanda. She's… Never mind. You met Mikaela and Sarah, right?"

"And Sideswipe." So, yes, apparently this person had gotten the same introduction she had, although probably with less initial disbelief, because of the visual. "He's very… Red." Amanda was guessing shock.

Amanda could hear the wince in Sam's voice when he spoke. "I'm sorry. He seems to keep on being the first to meet people today—probably hanging around there on purpose, if I know him. Sorry. He's very, um…"

"Very 'um' indeed," said the newcomer, voice slightly faint. "I have to say, I've never been picked up instead of shaking hands with someone before. He's lucky I didn't actively vomit on him. I'm Phenomena Brooks."

Amanda tried to fight back a laugh at her name and ended up with a choked snorting sound.

The girl sighed. "It's my _mother's_ fault. I have no idea what she was thinking, and can only guess that she had no idea what it means. It's a horrible name, I know, and I keep on meaning to change it, but I can never find the time, or find something to change it _to_. So please, _please_, don't laugh. Or joke. Especially joke. I've heard them all already, trust me." Her voice was still quiet, although considerably more passionate.

"Sit down and have a sandwich," said Amanda. "They're really not as bad as they taste."

"What…?" said Sam.

"Well, I don't think it's going to kill me, so it _can't_ be as bad as they taste."

"Mine's not that bad," he said, mild protestation in his voice.

"Lettuce shouldn't taste like this," said Amanda firmly.

There was rustling cloth and the newcomer was sitting down besides Amanda. "Amanda, right?" she asked. There was the brief sensation of two people reaching across her so that Sam could hand her some lunch, and then the noises of food being unwrapped and eaten hungrily.

"So, how'd you end up in this mess?" said Amanda finally.

There was a brief pause as Phenomena finished chewing and swallowed. "I was asleep," she said, sounding slightly embarrassed. "When I finally woke up, almost everyone had left for higher ground—figuratively speaking—and the… Decepticons, right? Decepticons were too close for me to leave, not too mention the risk of collateral damage from the fighting. I was told that they didn't want to risk me ending up hurt or dead, and so they took me with them."

"You'd think an organization apparently hell-bent on helping humanity would pick an area a little further away from delicate little human bodies to kick the shit out of each other," muttered Amanda. Phenomena laughed slightly, and Sam made a mild noise of protestation. "And I have to say, you must sleep like a rock, Phenomena." She managed—barely—to keep from smirking at the name again, although she was pretty sure it could still be heard in her voice.

"Not usually," said the quiet girl.

"So what, then? If your part of the city was anything like mine, it must have been _loud_. And vibrating. It must have been quite the party…"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. I'm a med student."

Amanda thought that her expression must have been quite a sight. "What?" said Sam.

"Doctor Phenomena," she said, still managing to keep a straight face. Barely. Her control was wavering.

Phenomena sighed softly, still managing to convey extreme irritation with the gentle sound. "My mother was and is a mess," she said. "I know it, she knows it, everyone who spends more than thirty seconds talking to her knows it. As a rebellious teenager, like any other teen, really, the only thing I could do that she hadn't done and would be surprised, shocked or horrified by was to be quiet, mature and responsible. So I studied late every Friday and Saturday night, took to playing classical music at a reasonable volume during normal hours and took home straight A's and joined the church youth group and History Day club. And now I'm studying to be a doctor because I _like_ working hard and I want to help people."

"Um," said Amanda. There was a brief pause. "…I'm very sorry."

"No, it's nothing," said Phenomena. "I'm pretty much used to it by now. It's really not all that big of a deal. I'm just a little… stressed by all this."

"Yeah, me too," said Amanda fervently.

"It is kind of stressful, yeah," said Sam. "And I don't even know what it's like to have something like this thrown at you all at once. At least it was all revealed in steps for me. Although I also ended up being told that my grandfather's glasses were needed by aliens to save the world. And my first contact was my car turning into a giant robot. And he couldn't talk so he couldn't explain anything."

"He couldn't talk?" said Amanda, curious.

"Your _grandfather's glasses_?" said Phenomena, incredulous.

"He'd had his voice box—well, the equivalent of it, anyways—damaged by Megatron, the Decepticon leader." Amanda tried desperately to stifle a giggle at the name.

"That's very—awe-inspiring," she said. "In a wow-that-must-be-the-ultimate-in-bad-sci-fi sort of way."

"He's a lot scarier when you've actually faced him, Amanda. And Phenomena, everyone wanted my grandfather's glasses because they had the location of the Allspark etched on them from where my grandfather had accidentally ended up activating some sort of thingy on Megatron when he found them exploring in the arctic. The Allspark creates mechanical life, and the Decepticons were going to use it to turn all the machines on earth alive so they'd kill all the humans, and the Autobots were trying to stop them. But it turns out that it'd been discovered by the government and they'd devoted an ultra-secret branch called Sector 7 to researching it, and they'd also found Megatron. Apparently most of our technological advances have come from him."

"You're right, it _is_ like bad sci-fi."

"I know! All we need is, let's see, some sort of horrible alien parasite or disease and possibly a clever trick ending and we'd be golden. Also more hero-types and slightly less comic relief. And more cannon fodder."

"Hey, I'm a hero-type," said Sam, sounding amused.

"No, I think you're comic relief too," said Phenomena, sounding mildly amused.

"Comic relief doesn't save the world," he countered.

"Hmmm. He has a point, don't you think, Amanda? …Amanda?"

"I thought I heard something," said Amanda after a minute. "An engine, maybe."

"Quite possibly," said Sam. "There's no normal vehicles here except for the ones Sarah and I—well, and Mikaela, too—drove on the way, but there's most of the Autobots here on earth."

Amanda shrugged. "I can't hear it anymore," she said finally.

"You must have very good hearing," said Phenomena. "I couldn't hear a thing—oh."

"What?" said Amanda.

"Can't you see...?"

"No, actually," she said. "What is it?"

"Here we go again," cut in Sam. "Not what, who."

"Hello," said a deep male voice above them—_far_ above them, by Amanda's estimation.

Besides her, Phenomena made a faint, startled squeaking noise.

"Hey," said Sam agreeably. "Amanda, Phenomena, this is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. Optimus, these are Phenomena Brooks and Amanda. Um, what was your last name, again, Amanda?"

"Riesing," she said, possibly on automatic.

There was a short pause.

"…you're blind?" said Phenomena.

"What?" said Optimus Prime.

"Yes," said Amanda.

"I didn't say it! This time it wasn't me!" said Sam.

"I'm very sorry about this," continued the Autobot leader after a minute. "Both of you shouldn't have been involved, but we didn't want to leave you to Decepticons, or collateral damage. We're doing our best to get you back to safety. For what it's worth, steps will be taken to insure that this doesn't impact your life past these next few days."

"…Yes, because _giant alien transforming robots kidnapping you_ is something you can just forget and move on," said Amanda, voice somewhere between caustic and incredulous.

"Amanda!" Sam hissed, elbowing her.

"I'm not sure I can deal with this," Amanda said, voice shaky.

"Delayed shock," identified Phenomena. "It'll all probably end up hitting me eventually, too, and really sinking in—if I'm lucky it'll be a slower process. I suppose not being able to see would make it worse."

"Amanda," said Optimus. "Do you have any sight at all?"

"No," she blurted, sounding slightly panicky.

"I see. I'll try to find some time that one of the—less intimidating Autobots can spend some time with you, to help you adjust. That offer extends to you as well, Phenomena."

"Along the same lines," said Sam, "do you think that you could get Sideswipe away from the impromptu human med center? He's 'greeted' both Phenomena and Amanda, and I'm pretty sure he's hanging out around there to get the chance to freak out the new humans."

There was a sound remarkably like a sigh. "I'll see what I can do, but—"

He was cut off by a high-pitched, hysterical scream coming from over where Amanda had woken up. She resisted an utterly inappropriate giggle.

"I should probably go check that out," said Sam; there was the brush of his clothes against Amanda's arm and the rustle of cloth as he stood up, and the sudden cold along her side as the wind he'd been blocking hit her.

"I'll stay here, if it's all the same," said Amanda. "You'll want to hurry, and I'd really rather not."

"I'll go," said Phenomena, standing up. Amanda had the distinct impression that she wanted to stay with the one human who seemed to know what was going on and, more importantly, gave out explanations.

"I should go as well," rumbled the voice above them—and it really was a nice voice, Amanda thought reflectively. Still with that odd distortion—probably because of metal vocal chords (or their corresponding part) instead of meat ones—but nice, rich and smooth. "Sideswipe's more likely to listen to me than anyone else. Excepting Sunstreaker, of course."

"Of course," muttered Amanda. Sam nudged her again, this time with the toe of his shoe. Then, louder, she said "I'll see you all later, then."

"Bye," said Phenomena, voice already fainter as she hurried after Sam, who was far enough that she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore.

"See you!" he called out, over his shoulder. After a short while there were more of those earth-rumbling collisions the Autobots probably called footsteps, moving away. She guessed that he'd needed to wait, to give Sam and Phenomena's human legs enough time to work up a head start.

It was nice in the sun, though, warm and relaxing, although the wind was a little chill. Amanda shifted slightly so she was more towards the lee side of the rock, more out of the wind. The sun was almost a physical presence against her skin, coating it with syrupy heavy warmth. It was nice to just sit and do nothing—no giant aliens, no introductions, no explanations, no freaking out, no _thinking_. In fact, she could almost imagine that she was back home, sprawled in the puddle of sunlight her window let in on a clear fall afternoon, dozing off over the homework she was supposed to be doing but wasn't…

Just before she feel asleep, she wondered if she could blame her exhaustion on whatever drugs the doctor-bot—Ratchet?—had given her.

--End Chapter 4--


	5. Chapter 5

**And Eyes That I Might See  
****Chapter Five  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers in any of its various forms. I merely borrow (and twist and pull and mutilate.) Other than that, see chapter 1 for characterization disclaimers—they still apply.

**Author's Notes**: Wheeljack's chapter. (As anyone who reads Alien knows, I have a weakness for scientists. Bumblebee's next, though, I promise!)

Many, many thanks to **mmouse15** for betaing for me!

oOoOoOo

Amanda was jolted out of soft, peaceful sleep by the sudden, insistent vibration of the earth underneath her, punctuated with the loud noise of Autobot feet walking.

The sudden realization that the source of the noise and vibrations had to be _really really close_ made her sit bolt upright and scream out loud.

There was an echoing shout of surprise, considerably lower than hers had been.

"Who's there?" she called out, voice hesitant, after she had scrambled back up into a sitting position, pushing her back into the rough, irregular surface of the boulder she'd eaten lunch against and fallen asleep against.

"Uh, I'm Wheeljack," said the voice. "Sorry to have surprised you… I didn't see you there, behind the rock."

"It's fine," said Amanda automatically, although it wasn't, really. There was just something about being woken up from a sound sleep to realize that there was someone/thing who could crush you to death by misstepping very, very close to your prone, helpless and very _human_ body that induced panic.

"—you're shaking."

"That'll pass." Amanda curled tighter around her knees.

There was a rustle of movement, the slight mechanical shiver of Wheeljack's limbs moving, and his voice was suddenly a lot closer. "Are you sure you're okay? I'm really very sorry, I—I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Amanda," she said automatically. There were some questions you answered without thought, even if you were half-panicking.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you. And really, I _am_ sorry. I'm more-or-less new here, new to earth, that is, and it's taking a bit of adjustment—wait a minute, you're the blind one?"

Amanda sighed. "Damn it," she muttered, mostly to herself. Louder, and in a considerably more polite tone, she said "Yes, that's me. Really, though, I have distinguishing characteristics aside from being blind. A personality and everything, I promise."

"Sorry. …I just—we haven't got any equivalent, in our own culture. It's just not something that happens. Do you know any technical details? I wonder if I could do something to fix it… It shouldn't be too hard, with the correct tweaking. And yes, here's some files on biotechnical engineering, this is just what I need—"

Something about the phrase 'biotechnical engineering' set off warning bells in Amanda's head.

"Whoah, there," she said feelingly. "No messing around with this stuff until you've been through medical school. At the very least. And then specialization classes."

There was a sound remarkably like a sigh. "If you're sure," he said, not sounding very sure at all, himself.

"Thank you," she said, not sure why. She had the distinct feeling that she sounded a little _too_ relieved at Wheeljack backing down.

There was a brief silence. "Do you need some help getting somewhere?" said Wheeljack finally.

"Uh, yeah, thanks. How…?" There were size differences, naturally. She couldn't prop an arm around his shoulder, or walk arm in arm with him. A hand on his shin—or ankle—would be more realistic, but even then his stride would be far greater than hers was _ever_ going to be.

"Just a second," said Wheeljack and there was a stranger series of clicks, whirrs, hums and clacks. "There. I'm seven-point-four-three feet in front of you."

"Um…" said Amanda, before something in her mind clicked into gear. "Oh. Transforming, right… God this is weird."

She edged carefully forward until she could feel the sudden cool as she stepped into Wheeljack's shadow, and the shifting air pressure as he blocked the slight wind, sending it buffeting in different, odd directions. One outstretched hand encountered an open car door and, hesitant, she crawled inside.

It was really, really weird. Especially when she considered that she was actually _inside_ of somebody.

"It's okay; calm down," said Wheeljack after a minute, sounding slightly concerned. Amanda jumped at the words—his voice seemed to _surround_ her (probably the car stereos, some part of her noted) and it was really, really disconcerting. She forcibly relaxed her tight grip on the door handle, realizing with a start that Wheeljack might be actually able to _feel_ it. And she had no idea what the handles corresponded to, in Autobot anatomy terms. She let go with a jump.

No, she wasn't particularly relaxed, in fact.

It wasn't a long trip, just a few minutes, even going pretty slowly—at least, Amanda thought they hadn't been moving very fast. Admittedly, she couldn't see the scenery, the best way to check that sort of thing, she'd been told, but the ride had _seemed_ slow, and not just because of the interminable awkwardness of being inside another living creature. (And Lord that was awkward, indeed. The last time she'd been in this sort of situation, she had been still attached to her mother. In the most literal sense of the word 'attached.')

Of course, there was a fair chance that the Autobots worked better than your average ordinary car did, being incredibly advanced robots as well. Amanda would imagine so, at least, especially considering how one of her friends with a car ranted about all the problems it had and caused. And who was to say that giant alien robots didn't make for an easy ride?

"We're here," announced Wheeljack at last. Amanda climbed out perhaps a _bit_ faster than was seemly.

"Thank you," she said, but she thought that the scientist might have missed it, the words drowned out by the noise of his re-transformation.

"So," he said. "We're at—Hello, Sam!"

"Hey, Wheeljack, Amanda. How are you two doing?"

"Not that you all aren't wonderful, but can I go home now, please?"

Sam laughed a little, but he also sounded like he might feel a little guilty about the situation. "Right. Sorry to skip to business, Amanda, but Wheeljack, would you please com whoever's in charge of the humans right now? Another person woke up, the older woman. Her name's Maude Marke, and she's married to someone named Steve. That's all we could get out of her—she's something of a battleaxe. She's back with Mikaela and Sarah and the baby, and Phenomena too, I think. Oh! And we have the baby's name—it's Cynthia, Cynthia Ballestero. She's the daughter of one of Maude's neighbors, and Maude was watching her while her mother ran to the store when the attack happened."

"Will do, Sam. I'll contact Ratchet, too—he'll probably be annoyed if he's still working on Ironhide, but he wanted to be told when the older woman—when Maude—woke up. She's older—by human standards, anyways—and he's worried about how she'll do."

"I pity whatever tries to kill her," Sam said, only halfway sounding like he was joking. Before he could say any more, he was interrupted by a cell phone ringing. "Hang on a second, that's my mom calling."

There was a long, awkward pause. Amanda half-listened to the one side of the conversation she could hear—there was nothing but a tinny buzz from his mom's end, at the distance Sam was from her—but didn't pay it much attention. It wasn't a particularly interesting conversation.

"So… You really can't see?" said Wheeljack at last, sounding well and truly puzzled.

Amanda sighed loudly, and clenched then unclenched her fists. "No. No, I can't. Just leave it alone, would you?"

"…_Why?_" he said. Amanda assumed, correctly, that Wheeljack was asking why she was blind, not why she didn't want to talk about it, but that didn't mean she couldn't answer the _other_ question you could get out of the situation.

"—It was a horrible accident. Very traumatizing. I try not to speak of it—in fact, I'm getting flashbacks again. I should probably go lie down somewhere nice and peaceful for a while."

"…your sense of humor is so messed up," interjected Sam who had, presumably, finished his phone conversation.

"It's my mother. She never loved me." Amanda's voice was expressively mournful—she knew it would be. It was one of the ones she practiced. (And there was _nothing_ like mournful when it came to adding humor to certain situations—ones involving nosey giant robots included, apparently.)

"So why can't you see?" continued Wheeljack, ignoring the more confusing parts of the conversation. He really _was_ curious.

"I was born like this. Please excuse my sense of humor or lack thereof at the moment—I really am feeling a little hysterical, and some time alone sounds fantastic."

"I can understand that," said Sam. "But maybe later? I've got a little time, now, and I really would like to introduce you to Bee… Bumblebee, really. He's great—my best friend."

Amanda sighed defeatedly. "Okay. _Fine_. Let's go introduce me to new robots—people—robots—whatever. I suppose that something else on top of everything else isn't going to do too much more damage at this point."

"Actually, the best term would be 'mech,'" provided Wheeljack helpfully.

"Okay, then, let's go!" Sam said, before Amanda could respond to Wheeljack. "Mikaela will probably catch up with us once she gets Maude settled in, so you can meet her, finally. She's my girlfriend."

"I remember you telling me, Sam," said Amanda, voice perhaps slightly more pointed than it should have been. She didn't _like_ it when people kept on telling her the same things over and over again. "Goodbye, Wheeljack," she added, in a considerably nicer tone. "It was nice to meet you. And, really, thanks for the ride."

"I'm glad you appreciated it," he said. "I wasn't sure—you were very tense. Accelerated heart rate and everything." Amanda had the distinct feeling she was blushing, from how hot her face was—just how much could the Autobots _see_ in their cabins? And how the hell did he know here heart rate?

"I have to say, it's kind of weird to think about riding around in someone once you've had a conversation with them," said Sam. "I don't blame Amanda at all. Man, my first times riding with Bee… Especially once the whole Mission City thing was over and I started trying to figure out 'normal' again. But anyways, bye, 'Jack. Hey, if you see the new guy around, tell him Optimus wants to talk to him, okay? I have no idea where he is. Or even what he looks like, actually… I still haven't gotten the chance to see him."

"Good bye," he replied. "I'll see you both later. Right now, I should probably go finish up my patrol… I never really did get that done. Ended up with Amanda, instead."

"That's probably for the best," said Sam, and Amanda guessed that he was having trouble keeping a straight face from his tone of voice.

"Good God but this is surreal," she said as she found Sam's shoulder and rested a hand on it, and the two headed out to find his best friend who was a transforming robot.

"Yes," said Sam. You really couldn't argue with the fact.

--End chapter 5--


	6. Chapter 6

**And Eyes That I Might See**  
**Chapter Six**  
By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any of the (many) versions of Transformers out there. I merely borrow, and do it entirely for fun: I'm certainly not making a profit.

**Author's Note**: Bumblebee, finally!

So, I had this hideously tl;dr rant written up here, but thankfully I waited long enough that my common sense returned, and it has since been deleted. Isn't a good thing that I wait to edit before I post?

Actually, I wait to edit two or three times, sometimes more, not counting editing done during the writing process, and now I send it to at least one beta and then edit it again and _then_ I post.

Many thanks to my truly incredible beta, **mmouse15**!

oOoOoOo

"Sam! _Sam!_" Amanda heard someone yell excitedly.

"Mikaela!" Sam called out in return from in front of her. Thankfully, he'd bowed to Amanda's (increasingly demanding) requests to pick her own way over the ground, even if it meant that they were moving somewhat glacially. There was enough of a trail now that she was doing pretty good when it came to heading in the right direction.

"Sam! Guess _what_? I got accepted! Great scholarship and everything! This is so cool!"

"Great! Oh, man—I can't believe it! That's so awesome! Did you tell your mom yet?"

"My mom? …No. She's going to freak out, and I want to be there for her."

"Really? I thought she _wanted_ you to go to college…"

"Well, yeah, but we'd been talking about community college or even correspondence courses—because of my grades and stuff. But I guess my essay was really good, or something, or they're looking for more 'diversity.' I don't think she's ready for me to go, though—I don't think she thinks I'm ready."

"That's awesome, though! She'll get over it, eventually. Your mom, I mean. I'll miss you—"

There were the faint noises of a kiss. _Right. Girlfriend,_ Amanda thought.

"Would someone explain what's going on?" she called out, once she judged herself close enough to the two teens to be easily heard.

"Oh, okay. Amanda, this is Mikaela, my girlfriend—Mikaela, this is Amanda. She's one of the ones who got brought in with us." Sam was getting better at not twitching (verbally, at least) when he introduced her.

"You're the blind one?" said Mikaela, being remarkably straightforward—it was kind of refreshing, she thought. In an I'm-tired-of-being-'the blind one' sort of way.

"I see someone's been talking," Amanda said by way of reply.

"It'd be easier to list who hasn't," said Mikaela dryly. "Sarah was talking about you—she likes your sense of humor—and I think _most_ of the Autobots I've run into have had some sort of question relating to you and the fact that you can't see." Amanda sucked in her breath. That was… Pretty intimidating to hear, matter of fact. "I think it kind of bothers some of them, actually. And, uh, if Ratchet or Wheeljack try to convince you to go through with some idea of theirs, it might not be a good idea—"

"I've been warned but, more to the point, my sense of self-preservation doesn't trust either of them," said Amanda, shaking her hand in greeting. Mikaela had a nice grip: it gave off a distinct feeling of common-sense. Amanda could use a little of that, at the moment; it seemed like most of the world had decided to stop making any kind of sense at all.

"Good idea. Of course, I think the Autobots are also really unnerved by babies, so don't take it too seriously."

"…Babies?"

"Yeah. Apparently, they don't really have a 'childhood' sort of stage (1) and instead they just come to life in what's more or less the equivalent of the late teens for humans, or the early twenties—and then they age really slowly. But there's no point where they're totally helpless and dependant, or even when they can't talk, so they just don't know how to act. And then I think that they all think that humans are really fragile—"

"Which we kind of are, by their standards," interjected Sam.

"—and babies even more so, which just makes them kind of skittish, too. Or that's my theory, at least."

"Huh. Weird… It makes a kind of sense, I suppose. Well, it makes as much sense as any of this has… Oh my _God_ this is weird."

"That gets better…" said Sam.

He wasn't very convincing.

"Right, of course it does. Brrrr, it's getting cold. Stupid mountains, not having indoor heating…"

"It was really cold last night," said Mikaela.

"And there were_raccoons_ everywhere," said Sam, sounding highly aggrieved. "Wretched animals. God how I hate them."

Mikaela giggled. "Well, I think they _like_ you."

"What?" said Mikaela.

"They were crawling on him."

"They're after me! They want to eat me, I swear!"

"Or they wanted to eat that granola bar you had in your pocket," Mikaela said in response, but Amanda wasn't listening. She'd thought she'd heard something—she shifted herself to one side to catch the noise, whatever it was—assuming that she'd really heard anything. She was kind of on-edge at the moment.

"What?" asked Sam, noticing her preoccupation.

"Nothing, I just thought I heard something… I guess it's nothing. I'm a little twitchy right now…"

"No, you probably did," said Sam after a minute. "I can see it—well, him, actually. It's Bee—the one we hauled you out here to talk to in the first place, remember?"

"Riiight. Guess I wasn't just imagining things…"

"You must have really good hearing," commented Mikaela.

"Well, mostly I'm just better at paying attention," said Amanda. "Humans are wired to have sight as their primary sense—which doesn't work for me, obviously, so it's kind of balanced out, because I put the emphasis on things like hearing and touch and taste and smell, instead of sight."

"Huh. Interesting…"

The sound of an engine and tires on the rough terrain were loud and obvious, now. Amanda found herself tensing a little. From her (somewhat limited) experience, the Autobots were all kind of a little… Overwhelming. Just by virtue of being what they were, in several cases. Not so much when it came to some of them—Sideswipe, for example. Amanda didn't want to meet him again, in particular, especially now that she had an idea of what they were and what was going on, and the shock and the disorientation of waking up in an unknown place had worn off. Knowing the full situation had made the situation both more and less frightening, simultaneously.

"Hey! Bee!" Mikaela yelled, loud enough to hurt Amanda's ears a little. She got a brief sensation of wind as the car drove past her and pulled to a stop, and she couldn't help herself—she flinched away a little, even knowing that there was no way that it—that he—was close enough to hit her. There were more of those strange shifting sounds, and then a response.

"Yeah?"

The words were clearly from the Autobot—Bee, or, no, Bumblebee, if Amanda was remembering the full name correctly, which she thought she was, even if it sounded hideously inappropriate for a 20-something-foot-tall (2) robot. There was that odd sort of mechanical almost-vibration to it, but it was thicker than it had been in the others, and there was a staticky quality. Other than that, the voice was a light tenor and sounded younger, closer to her age or maybe even the very late teens, instead of the more middle-aged voices of the others that she'd met. Of them, Wheeljack had probably sounded the youngest, but still older than her. Of course, it got harder to tell, with adult voices—up to about her age it was easier.

And they were giant alien robots. Who was to say that they followed the general rules she'd figured out for telling someone's age by their speaking voice? Hell, she had no idea if they even aged at all.

"I got in!" Mikaela still sounded disbelieving and surprised and incredibly happy, all at once. Amanda could sympathize. _She_ still remembered making it into colleges she'd thought she didn't have a hope in hell of getting into. Of course, being blind had given her a distinct advantage… Colleges had been all about diversity, or at least the semblance of it.

"Great!" the Autobot replied, sounding genuinely happy. Amanda felt herself relaxing a little. So far, he was proving to be the least intimidating of the (heh) Cybertronians, despite—or maybe because of—the fact that he had yet to direct his attention onto her. Although, to be fair, Optimus Prime hadn't really been that bad—it had just been luck, _bad_ luck, that he'd happened to show up while Amanda was in the middle of a minor freak-out. Or a major one. Well, minor according to the circumstances. And Wheeljack had been trying—he'd just been kind of unnerving anyways, at least in part because she'd been _inside_ him. And also because he wasn't a neurologist _or_ an optician, but seemed to be ready to dabble in it anyways.

Ratchet had been too intense for comfort, along with the same problems that Wheeljack had had. He'd also been kind of scary when he was threatening the other one, Ironhide, who had just kind of ignored her, except to laugh every so often. Amanda could deal with that. He actually reminded her of an uncle she rarely saw…

And the less said about Sideswipe the better.

Amanda snapped back to reality (well, reality as it currently was. That is, reality minus a considerable portion of normalcy and believability over bad science-fiction) as she caught her name. Sam was speaking.

"—this is Amanda. Amanda, Bumblebee—he's my best friend."

"Nice to meet you," said Amanda automatically, feeling unprepared and stunned. For once—and she almost never did—she wished she could see; she felt remarkably naked, exposed, like this, with everyone (presumably) looking at her, and with no way to look back, except for picking up on things like the less-subtle movements and vocal clues and tones.

Thank God for manners and rote phrases to fall back on, and thank her parents for an upbringing that had made them automatic.

And at least she'd been right about the name. Even if it still seemed hideously inappropriate. (Because nothing said 'transforming alien car' quite like being named after a large, awkwardly flying and fuzzy hive insect that collected nectar and pollen to produce a sweet, sticky liquid collected by humans in turn for time out of mind. Also with interesting wiggling social dances—no, wait, that was honey bees.)

Maybe he was yellow and black, or something. Or fuzzy. Or he buzzed…? She bit back frantic giggles.

"Nice to meet you, too," said that strange voice.

Amanda was struck by a sudden thought, and manners went out the window in face of still-present shock and something to say that wasn't 'Nice weather we're having, isn't it?'

"—How on earth do you all speak English?" she blurted, and felt her face heat, which only made her embarrassment worse. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that she didn't know what she looked like when she was flushed; the reality could be either better or worse than what she imagined it was.

"Internet," said Bumblebee cheerfully.

"Jesus Christ, and you can still speak like a normal human being?" blurted Amanda. Sam, Mikaela and the mech all burst out laughing.

"More or less," he responded. "Now, at least."

Sam got over his laughter long enough to finish the story, but not quickly enough that Amanda didn't have a distinct impression of Autobots saying something to the effect of 'lol, i a robot!one!'

"Before he came to earth, his voice box—well, not really a voice box—was damaged really badly by Megatron—" again, Amanda bit back a truly inappropriate giggle "—and it took a long time for him to recover. It might have been the Allspark that did it, in the end, nobody's really sure. But it was kind of awkward at first, because he couldn't really explain anything except in radio clips and things like that, until the rest of the Autobots arrived and things could be straightened out. Kinda."

"Yeah, I think I remember you telling me something like that," said Amanda faintly. "Along with Phenomena." It really was a pity that there weren't any easy nicknames you could get out of the name 'Phenomena,' some part of Amanda thought.

There was a slightly awkward pause.

"It must have been hard, not being able to speak," said Amanda at last.

"Yeah," said Bumblebee. "It was. It was _frustrating_—Sam was right there, but I couldn't really say anything."

"You did a pretty good job getting through to me anyways," Sam protested gently.

"It would have been easier."

"Well, yeah, but from my point of view, it was going to be pretty crazy no matter how it went—you're kind of a shock to get to know."

"_Yes_," said Amanda fervently.

"Still, I prefer being able to talk."

"Even though it means that Ratchet's always after to you to get you to stop?" asked Sam, a hint of wicked humor in his voice.

"Ratchet can't follow me everywhere," said Bee, voice equally sharp and amused.

"I think you're underestimating him," cut in Mikaela.

"Probably," agreed Bumblebee easily. "Listen, though, I have to go take another shift on patrol duty."

"What, again?" asked Sam, sounding dismayed. "But you just came back from one—"

"Optimus wanted the new guy for something else," he said. "And I was free. It's not a real problem—I was just hoping to get some time to spend with you two. And you, too, Amanda, although you were more of a surprise. See you later?"

"Okay," said Sam. "Bye!" He was echoed by Mikaela and, belatedly, Amanda.

"New guy?" asked Amanda, turning to look in Sam and Mikaela's direction as the sound of Autobot footsteps faded off into the distance.

"He arrived a day or two ago," explained Mikaela.

"Bluestreak," added Sam. "I haven't even really got a chance to see him, yet—he showed up, then there was the battle, and he's been gone since then, doing things. Coincidence."

"Ah," said Amanda. "Hey, um, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, because you've been wonderful, Sam, and you, Mikaela, but I'm a little overwhelmed. Do you think I could have some time alone…?"

"Sure," said Sam immediately. "Uh, I can send someone to pick you up in an hour or so…"

"I understand," Mikaela added.

"Thank you, so much."

oOo

They left, the sound of their footsteps fading away into the distance, some of Amanda's stress fading with it. She forced tense muscles to relax with a sigh.

A sudden thought filled her with warmth. Throughout that whole conversation with Bumblebee, the fact that she was blind hadn't featured once. Maybe miracles did happen, some part of her mind muttered sarcastically.

Amanda gave herself in to numbness and relaxed, ignoring the slight chill of the rock she was lying on. The sun was still shining, the warmth soaking into her, and the air still smelled fresh and clean, full of promise despite the circumstances. The wind whispered through some near-by fir trees, rustling through their needles, and somewhere far off a bird trilled.

The world was still beautiful, despite how her perception of it had been completely shattered. That was somehow comforting.

oOo

(1) Yeah, I know. However, this fic is _movieverse_ and this is what makes sense to me, so I can use it, because the movie never really addressed the matter. Therefore, it's what we're going with in terms of Autobot not-birth, for the sake of this story, at least.

(2) Bumblebee's official height is actually somewhere in the middle to upper teens, but Amanda's in no position to know this.


	7. Chapter 7

**And Eyes That I Might See**  
**Chapter Seven**  
By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Transformers.

**Author's Notes**: Two more chapters to go! I am going to finish this thing!

(Sorry—feeling slightly overloaded in terms of projects at the moment.)

That said, thank you to all my great reviewers, alerters and favoriters! And thank you so, so much, mmouse15, for betaing!

oOoOoOo

Amanda was idly shredding a blade of grass between her fingers, whistling quietly to herself. The warmth of the sun felt nice, pushing against her shoulder blades, the warmth pressing deeply into her skin. The air smelled clean and alive and fresh, she'd found a comfortable rock to lean against, and there was a river a little ways away; she could just barely hear it. She was happy.

More to the point, there were no giant robots to be intimidating, vaguely (if accidentally) insulting and/or overwhelming. And she was quite tired of having herself—and her disability—run face-first into some sort of outside-my-cultural-frame-of-reference barrier, damn it.

…Although there was a fair chance she was breaking just as many of their standards and expectations.

At least _they_ had known that humans existed previous to today, hadn't been kidnapped, hadn't woken up to crazy explanations and then a demonstrative attack by a borderline sociopath named after a type of accident, hadn't been left, stranded, with total strangers who, in many cases, weren't even from the same planet, solar system or, presumably, galaxy…

Though they had lost their planet to what sounded like a truly horrendous civil war, and then had their only hope for continuing their species destroyed, which hadn't happened to Amanda, yet. Although, considering the way the past two days had gone, it was only a matter of time before the 'little' catastrophes were used up and whatever higher power had it out for her started pulling out the big guns. And then she'd have scuzzballs with creepy pick-up lines about 'rebuilding the human race one baby at a time' hitting on her.

So she supposed she could cut them some slack. Assuming they stopped freaking out because she couldn't see, and that they weren't Sideswipe, and that nobody tried and neuro-optological experiments on her. She'd thought _human_ doctors were bad! They at least went through medical school. And, for that matter, had eyes. (Of course, for all she knew, the Autobots did, too. It seemed unlikely, though.)

But really, everyone she'd met had been nice, or niceish, or at least not purposefully trying to freak her out. If you ignored Sideswipe. Which Amanda was. She thought that it just wasn't a good idea to think about certain things too much. It could be… Upsetting.

Mirage—she'd liked him. Quiet, polite, and with a nice voice; it had been _calm_, even when there'd been that whole confusion with being seen and not seeing. Ratchet had been grumpy, but in a very _human_ way, and he hadn't even been that unnerving when he'd been arguing with Ironhide, who'd laughed at _some_ sort of ill-advised joke or wisecrack of hers. Wheeljack, she though, honestly wanted to help her, she just didn't want to _accept_. Bumblebee had been…

—He'd been _thoughtful_, that was it, and diplomatic. Maybe he'd had more time on Earth to adapt, or something. Beyond that, she'd been third-wheeling with him. Or fourth-wheeling, really, but all three of them—Sam, the car, and Mikaela—had been nice about it. It hadn't been an exclusive sort of closeness the three of the them had, it just was something Amanda wasn't a part of.

She wondered how that sort of closeness, camaraderie and understanding had grown up between the three of them. She knew the bones of the story, from Sam, but…

Oh well. Some people just had personalities that fit each other: puzzle pieces, if you wanted a slightly trite metaphor. Saving the world had probably just welded those figurative pieces together. And that meant the puzzle pieces were metal…? Because cardboard would just burn.

She should probably give up the metaphor while she could still pretend she was ahead.

And Optimus Prime. Amanda felt her cheeks burn a little hot, blushing—she had no idea what she looked liked, but she imagined it wasn't particularly attractive. She'd been panicking when she'd met him, really, and that was the problem: stress clearly did horrible things to her already-slightly-warped sense of humor—which would probably explain any number of unfortunate teenaged incidents—and the leader of the Autobots had just managed to show up at a particularly bad time, and embarrassing things had gone down. His voice didn't help, and the fact that he'd been nice despite the fact that she was a borderline-hysterical young woman with very little in terms of accomplishments to her name, and he was the highly-respected supreme leader of a group of aliens fighting to protect earth.

In fact, he'd even said that he'd find someone—and by that he meant one of the robots—a little less intimidating who'd be willing to talk to her. She wondered how that would out, assuming it did. They _were_ in the middle of a war, after all.

It was getting colder. The sun was going down. Thank God, thought Amanda. Today had been the day that not only refused to end, it kept on getting worse and worse _as_ it didn't stop happening.

Hmmm. She was getting hungry again. The nasty sandwich had been a while ago. Sam had said he'd pick her up, and she thought that that had been a while ago. And dusk was falling fast; she was uncomfortably chilly.

There was a long moment's silence, unbroken by Amanda's thoughts, or by anything but the soft noise of the river and the forest. Finally, it was interrupted. Amanda sighed heavily.

"Amanda!" she heard someone yelling, still a pretty long ways away, if she was reading the voice right—although who knew how being out in the woods like this would affect how sound traveled.

"Here!" she called back, and waited.

"Amanda! Are you out there?" the voice yelled again, a few minutes later. Now, the yeller was close enough that Amanda could tell that his voice was unfamiliar.

"Over here!" she yelled—maybe he just hadn't heard her the first time."

"Okay! I'm heading over there now!"

A few minutes later there were the noises of someone scrambling up a steep, slippery slope. "There you are," said the voice. "I'm Jerry—Mikaela asked me to get you."

"Amanda, but I suppose you know that, considering the evidence. Thanks for coming out here to get me, too."

"I have to admit, I wanted to get away from everyone—and everything—back there for at least a few minutes. Have you met Sideswipe?"

"Wish I hadn't had _that_ particular pleasure. Did he pick you up, too?"

"No, thank God—he was just _talking_, with me. Apparently screwing with peoples' world views is something of a hobby for him."

"Fun."

"I know—and now I'm probably going to need to rewrite whole portions of my book. Dang constantly-changing worldviews."

"You're a writer?"

"Not… Exactly." Jerry sounded slightly embarrassed. "I'm actually a janitor. Writing's my hobby."

Amanda decided to ignore the obvious jokes and jibes. She'd already been callous enough today, what with Phenomena and all. "What's your book about, then?"

"Comparative religion." The embarrassment had switched to sheepishness. "I have a degree in philosophy—it's utterly useless, of course, but it was also completely worth it—and my own

faith, on top of that was the inspiration for the whole thing. It's out of my hands now, though. I sure as hell ain't the one in the driver's seat at the moment."

Uh-oh, religion. More to the point, someone who had it. And today was not going to be a good day for Amanda to get into a heated philosophical debate about the existence of god. Amanda searched for something a little less likely to end in tears.

"Divine inspiration?"

"Satanic would probably be a little closer to the truth."

Amanda laughed. He had a sense of humor, at least. "That sounds almost heretic. Do you want to start heading back, though? It's kind of cold up here, and I suspect it's getting kind of dark."

"Your suspicions would be correct. Want me to lead you?"

"Well, 'want' would be a little strong, but I'm not diametrically opposed to it. Thank you, by the way."

"It's no problem! Like I said, I _wanted_ to get out a little—"

"Well, thank you for _that_, too, but I was trying to thank you for not making a huge deal out of the fact that I can't see. You have no idea how refreshing that is, especially after the day I've had."

"Ohhh. I get it."

"To hammer the point home, giant alien robots apparently don't have physical disabilities that aren't easily fixed."

"_Ouch_. No, I'm used to it, by now. My parents were both deaf. I'm a fluent signer—I translate, sometimes—and so I think I've got something of an advantage over most people when it comes to knowing how to act."

"Unfair advantage or not, it still stands. Anyways, how'd you get involved with this particular mess?"

"I'm new in town. I, uh, got lost trying to evacuate with everyone else."

Amanda couldn't help it—she laughed. "Sorry!" she gasped through her giggles. It didn't seem to matter: after a second, Jerry started laughing as well.

"And here I was, feeling a little silly for getting separated from my next-door neighbor on the street and then conked on the head with a piece of falling rubble or something."

oOo

"So… You're Bluestreak?"

"Yes—I am. I'm new here, I arrived halfway through the battle that made all you humans end up out here, though I _actually_ landed a little earlier than that, it's because I needed to find an alternate form to transform into, and I didn't realize that something was going on, let alone a battle, until I tried comming Optimus Prime to find out where he was and where I should go to report in, and they were all fighting so I was just there for the end of things—really, I feel kind of bad about it because I should have been there and it was my first fight here on earth so I was letting them all down right from the start, in a way, which is too bad because I'd really wanted to make a good impression since everyone here's so famous and experienced and also some of the last Autobots left so it's not like I have somewhere else to go or get assigned to if I mess this up too badly—well, except the Decepticons, but I'd rather have my processor glitched up past recognition than that—which is about what it would take to make me join up with them, so I suppose they might be one in the same…"

It was even worse than it would have been in a human, Amanda thought reflectively. Autobots didn't have to stop and pause for breath.

Really, though, it wasn't all that bad. Bluestreak talked too much, yeah, but Amanda also got the distinct impression that he was really, really nervous. Amanda knew other people—humans—who were babblers when they were nervous.

Of course, from the sound of things, he'd have to be a talker regularly, too, because nerves could only count for so much in terms of extreme personality changes.

"All the Autobots seem really nice," she said. "I don't think they're going to care too much that you were a little late."

"I hope so… Optimus Prime is my hero, I never thought I'd actually meet him in person, let alone be under his direct command—and I never thought I'd be working with mechs like Bumblebee or even Wheeljack—well, I was never going to end up working with him back during the middle of the war, I'm not made for science or medicine or anything even _vaguely_ connected like that, but still, he's really well-known—"

"I didn't know that," Amanda said, surprised. "Maybe I shouldn't have been so nervous about him working on fixing my eyesight… Actually, on reflection, yes I should have been. Even without considering the warnings I got. I don't know too much about your guys' biology—or not-biology, but I don't think I know a better word for it right now and I'm too tired to want to bother; physiology, maybe—but I doubt it has all that many similarities to ours."

There was, surprisingly, a long pause.

"Bluestreak?" asked Amanda finally, sounding maybe a little doubtful.

"…I was told not to say anything about how you can't see 'cause it would be rude and I'm new to earth so I haven't had _any_ time to learn about what's appropriate and what's not and in what situations and things like that and I heard you've been hearing questions you don't want to deal with from all of us Autobots all day so if I end up insulting you I'm really, really sorry and I'll just shut up for once and take you back to the group, but what is it like being blind?"

"You know, with that sort of buildup, I thought you were going to ask something _really_ bad—way to psyche a girl out." Amanda paused for a second, to give him a chance to say something, but there was no response.

"Well, I've been blind my whole life, so don't expect me to be able to give an answer with accurate comparisons. But anyways. It's some sort of neurological problem, for me—there's nothing wrong with the eyes themselves, as far as we can tell. It can be hard. It was worse when I was younger—ninth grade was probably the worst. I was angry with _every_body, which really isn't so unusual, although I suppose actually having something to angst about is—and I just wanted the chance to not need all kinds of special arrangements.

"And it was hard to get around, alone especially, or with other people, which made me feel dependent; I couldn't make friends without feeling like that person's Good Deed for the day or the week or the month or whatever, or a pity-me case, or the answer to someone's curiosity; I couldn't find the school textbooks in a Braille edition, which just drove my differences home—things like that. It wasn't a good time for me. Some of my teachers didn't help—I did not need _coddling_. Still don't, matter of fact, it's a pity some people can't learn the difference between making allowances for a disability and being a condescending ass. But I'm set up to deal with it, now—it was harder back then. Really, it was just a hard time for me."

Bluestreak didn't say anything. Amanda suddenly felt kind of awkward, a little embarrassed. She hurried to fill the silence.

"Well, now everything's fine. I'm getting a degree in psychotherapy, I'm living on my own, learning to deal with everything—I'm really happy, I have friends, I have a part-time job to help pay the rent… I have giant alien robots asking me if I'm _really sure_ that I don't want them poking about in my brain." Amanda giggled a little. Surprisingly, Bluestreak did as well, a little cautiously at first, but relaxing when she didn't jump down his throat for it.

"Yeah, Wheeljack's famous, but he's also kind of _infamous_…"

"Yes, I got warned that the _real_ bad things started happening when things _stopped_ exploding. Got any examples of what he's infamous _for?_ I do love a little gossip now and then…"

oOo

"You're showing signs of tiredness," said Bluestreak worriedly.

"…If that's what you want to call it, then yes," said Amanda, dryly. "Personally, I would say I am yawning, but that might just be me."

"You should go back."

"Would you, um, would you mind laying down for a while so I can pace your length? To figure out how tall you are?"

"Sure, no problem! Although we're all different sizes. I'm a little taller than Bumblebee, who's the shortest, but more lightly built. Optimus Prime's the tallest here, but there are taller 'Bots, although mostly fliers at that point. And then the really, really little ones, but those are mostly dependant now and attached to bigger 'bots—or 'cons, mostly, because that can get kind of morally iffy, I remember back on Cybertron before things got really bad, there was always one kind of debate or another about legal status for…"

Amanda half-tuned him out as he carefully lay down on his back, waiting for the noise and vibration of his movement to die away before she carefully walked forward, feeling for the robot.

"A little to the right," Bluestreak said helpfully, and Amanda finally touched metal—it was strangely warmer than she'd expected, especially now in the brisk chill of evening, not at all like what she'd expected—although it made sense. It wasn't the Autobots were _actual_ cars that could turn themselves off—would that be like death to a human?

Carefully, Amanda walked the length of Bluestreak's body, utterly absorbed by trying to get a clear, solid idea of the _size_ of him—it was hard to do. Amanda was irked by how hard it was, even concentrating the way she was, and with a full day to process everything that had happened—Sideswipe had _easily picked her up,_ after all—she was still having a hard time absorbing the information. She felt, perhaps unreasonably, as if it would have been much, much easier if she had some _visual_ information to go along with what her other senses could provide.

It was her absorption and consternation that distracted her enough to miss the approaching footsteps—footsteps belonging to another of the robots—until he was, figuratively speaking, right on top of them.

"What the slag are you doing?" asked a voice flatly, an abrupt tenor that was, pardon the pun, alien to her. "You look ridiculous."

"Uh…" said Bluestreak.

"Jesus Christ not again," muttered Amanda.

--end chapter 7--

(…I bet you can guess whose turn it is next chapter.)


	8. Chapter 8

**And Eyes That I Might See****  
Chapter Eight**  
By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers. (No, really.) I am merely borrowing the characters for the sake of my own amusement and, hopefully, yours.

**Author's Notes**: And here's to the people who guessed this chapter's Autobot correctly! By name, in alphabetical order, they are Atalan, blood shifter, Carmilla DeWinter, Dragon260, flamingmarsh, hecate-19, Meiza, Ookami Aya, Okami-chan and ViolentBigGrl.

Sorry for the wait on this! Hopefully, chapter 9—which will be the last part to this story—will be out (relatively) soon.

Many thanks to **mmouse15** for betaing!

* * *

_"What the slag are you doing?" asked a voice flatly, an abrupt tenor that was, pardon the pun, alien to her. "You look ridiculous."_

_"Uh…" said Bluestreak._

_"Jesus Christ not again," muttered Amanda._

* * *

Amanda flinched, startled by the unexpected (and unexpectedly rude) voice, then flinched again as Bluestreak sat up, metal scraping against metal and the huge bulk of him—she just couldn't get over how _big_ they were—brushing past her.

"I was helping Amanda get an idea of how big I am," Bluestreak said cheerfully. "Because she's blind. 'Manda, this is Sunstreaker."

"Hello," Amanda said, only slightly shaky, trying to subtly feel around for Bluestreak so she had something solid to lean against, figuratively speaking. The Autobot was the one person she'd met so far that she'd liked unreservedly.

…Well… There was Sam and Sarah, even Phenomena. Jerry had been downright charming, Mirage had been trying to be nice, even after all that initial confusion. The only thing she had against Optimus Prime was her lingering embarrassment about how she'd acted. Bumblebee had been great, as had Mikaela, and it wasn't their fault, or Sam's, that the three of them were close almost to the point of exclusion. Ratchet had just been slightly grumpy, even if that made him mildly horrifying, and Ironhide hadn't even really interacted with her, although he'd been mildly horrifying as well, but not in a really _bad_ way…

Okay, mostly it was just the first Autobot she had met. _Sideswipe_.

"Why do you need to lay down so the organic can tell what size you are? That's ridiculous. And you're going to get disgusting carbon constructs lodged in your joints doing that. Don't come to _me_ when you need someone to work them out."

There was a puzzled silence.

"Uh, Sunstreaker?" Bluestreak said, hesitantly. "'Blind' means not being able to see."

"…Oh."

Amanda snorted with slightly bitter amusement. It was regretfully loud in the surprising and sudden silence that had fallen.

"Really," Bluestreak said, suddenly, as if the silence was bothering him so much he needed to break it. "You should start researching this sort of stuff. Looking up the definition of a word when you don't know what it means… It's a good idea, usually." He sounded reproachful, and maybe still slightly nervous. "Because—Well, what were you going to come up for as a definition for 'blind'?"

"Yeah," added Amanda.

There was a pointed lack of any reply.

"So, Sunstreaker, is there any reason you're out there? Not that it's not great to see you! Because it is, really, but it's kind of unexpected since you've kind of been avoiding everyone this whole time and it's been sort of strange but more normal for you, I guess. So I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised except for now because you've found me, right? So I guess you were looking for me, because you didn't just drive off again or anything and—"

"You're due for patrol. And Optimus told me to make sure the human you were watching gets back safe." Amanda started at that—he had to mean her!—but he didn't seem to think that that was even vaguely out of the ordinary. "He must mean that thing, then."

"Hey!" Amanda was nettled, growing very much tired of the constant little jabs very quickly. "I am _not_ a thing!"

"Don't take it too seriously," said Bluestreak, a little nervously. "He doesn't really mean it. I think. I mean, it's kind of just the way Sunstreaker is..."

"That's no excuse," muttered the woman darkly.

"I really do need to go, then," he continued, suddenly. "Because I'm supposed to go patrol, and that's important, especially now, with us barricaded in by the Decepticons—hey, isn't one of them named Barricade? That seems kind of appropriate, I guess, since they've got us trapped in here and the humans are kind of making things more difficult because it means we're more vulnerable—not that I'm not happy to meet you, Amanda! It's really great, you seem really nice and this is the first time I've really gotten to meet a person, I mean, a human, and you seem really nice and I was kind of worried at first—"

Sunstreaker snorted again. "Why?"

"Why? Well, I mean, you hear stories and then there were all the warnings, and I didn't want people to be really scared, because—Because, right? That would be awful, and it would be really lonely if everyone here was too scared to talk to me or even hated me—"

"You worry too much."

"...It's a good thing to worry about," Bluestreak said, simply, soundly a little sad. He brightened again, suddenly, and continued. "But I do need to go! Bye, Amanda, I promise I'll see you again soon, Sunstreaker, would you take Amanda back to the base? I wouldn't ask you to 'cause I know you—"

"You're late. Go."

"Thank you!" said Bluestreak, sounding pleased and thankful. There were the noises of transformation—it was amazing, how quickly she'd gotten used to that—and then the always-surprising squeal of tires on dirt, a car accelerating away. That still made her nervous, not because of who and what Bluestreak was, but because cars had always put her a bit on edge. They were so loud, deafening and the build-up—the sheer _mass_ of them. And she could never see how close they were, just guess based on the sounds of their engines, their tires. No, she'd never been a fan of cars...

Amanda realized, with more than a certain measure of trepidation, that Sunstreaker had never actually promised to bring her back. And he certainly didn't like humans. He didn't even seem to like _Bluestreak,_ and he was one of the nicest people she knew, whether or not he was a transforming car. It had made her feel like she'd _made a difference_ when he'd told her—and Sunstreaker, she supposed—how happy he was that he'd gotten to know her, and things had gone well. It filled her with a warm glow, a fuzzy, happy feeling.

Sunstreaker did not do that. No, not at all.

Amanda stood with a sigh, feeling achy and tired. Her day was definitely starting to wear on her. It seemed like it had been endless... Which made a certain amount of sense.

It was time to gather up her stuff. There was a purse—it was amazing, the things you managed to keep a hold of just because it had become entirely automatic, and she was definitely sold on the benefits of keeping your bag slung over both shoulders, now—and her shoes. She'd have put those on, now that she thought of it, even if she wasn't heading back. It had been nice to squinch her toes through the dirt—more like cool, dry dust, really—but it was getting really cold.

She stood and hesitated just momentarily, not sure if she needed to say something, or what to say if she did.

"What are you doing?" said Sunstreaker, flatly.

"Getting ready to go...?"

"_Huh. _If you want to stay out here longer, you can."

"Oh! Um, thank you... If it's a bother, it's fine, I'm happy to go back now—"

"It's not like I _want_ to go rushing back to those idiots in camp."

"...Um."

There was an awkward silence. Amanda sat back down.

"Bluestreak's an idiot," Sunstreaker said at last.

The woman stiffened again. "Excuse me?" she said, voice waspish and angry. "He's a wonderful person, and I'm honored that I had the chance to meet him—"

"He worries about _stupid things_," Sunstreaker said, and Amanda paused, face going slack with surprise. She didn't know what his tone meant, it was confusing... "_Idiot._"

"I don't see how worrying about people liking you is stupid," Amanda said, quietly. "I'd feel bad if I thought that there was a chance that everyone on Earth would hate me if they saw me."

Sunstreaker made a noise that sounded almost like a sigh, surprising Amanda again, but she let it go.

"It shouldn't matter. If someone can't see something like that, then they're stupid, so their opinion _doesn't matter._"

"I guess," she replied, sounding dubious. "...It would still kind of hurt. Wouldn't you wonder if it was you instead of them, after a while?"

The silence that followed her comment felt sharper, more pained, for some reason she couldn't name. There were the sounds of Sunstreaker shifting, and nothing more. Amanda wished she could see. At least that way she could _attempt_ at trying to understand alien robot body-language. They seemed to talk a lot like humans, so maybe that would translate as well... No, that seemed unlikely...

"No," said Sunstreaker suddenly.

"Huh?" said Amanda, startled. "No what?"

"You _don't_ start to think it's you."

"Oh!" It made sense—she'd believe that nobody really liked Sunstreaker. She also didn't believe him when he said it didn't start to hurt after a while. "...Maybe it's just me, then. How do you know Bluestreak?"

"He's part of my team. It was just the three of us: me, Bluestreak and my brother. For... millennia."

"That sounds...

"It sounds lonely. Wait—brother? How does _that_ work?"

"Our sparks are tied. Our—hearts, our souls, whatever. Your stupid human language is useless."

"I like English, and it works well for me. That must be—hard, I guess. But it sounds... nice? I don't know."

"Sides is an idiot. And I would do _anything_ for him."

Amanda was inclined to believe him. "Is anyone _not_ an idiot to you? And who's this 'Sides' person? I don't think I've met him..."

"You have. It's short for Sideswipe."

"_...Sideswipe._ You're his _brother._"

"Yeah."

"He—argh! _He's_ the one who picked me up! I was... I was—it was _horrifying_, I've never been so scared in my life, I—I... It's inhuman! He was..."

"_Watch it._"

"He _picked me up_ when I had just woken up. I couldn't see, and he was 'proving' that the Autobots were real—of course I didn't believe it when Sam just told me! I can't see—and I was scared, alone, confused, this has never happened to me before and—and I'm _vulnerable_, I hate saying that, but I really can't see, I didn't know anything, I couldn't even see what kind of place I was in, all I knew was that it echoed strangely but I'd gotten hit on the head, I didn't know what it had messed up—I was _so scared..._" She was almost crying, she realized, reliving the experience.

"_...I'm sorry._" The apology almost sounded as if it should be a threat. "...I'm not my brother."

Amanda didn't say anything for a slow, cold minute. "What... What do you mean by that?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the first word, her throat choked with tears and stress, and she cleared her throat before trying again.

"Sideswipe says that a lot. He's the _nice_ one of us."

"...I'd disagree," Amanda said softly. "You've been... Nice."

"Don't lie," Sunstreaker said, sharply.

"No! You have! You're talking to me. And you've told me the truth—at least, I think you have. You didn't have to... help calm me down. You've answered my questions. You—you even stayed out here with me! I was all ready to go back to the main group, no questions asked. You've been rude, too, but you've been nice. And with Bluestreak—he's your friend too, isn't he?"

"...Yeah." Again, the confession sounded like it needed to be dragged out of him by the teeth.

"And you haven't scared me the way _Sideswipe_ did."

"...I don't know what the _slag_ he was thinking then," the mech confessed. "We're not the same person. I'm not my brother. Sides says that a _lot_. He's the one who _likes_ people. _I_ don't understand it! But everyone thinks that he's going to get violent too, because I do." There was a smug satisfaction to the words, not at the reaction other Autobots had to Sideswipe, but at the violence. Which was kind of worrying. Amanda's stomach knotted with slight fear, and she forced herself to make a conscious decision to _not be afraid of him_.

"You... Don't really seem to like people either," she said.

"I don't like _anyone._"

"You like Bluestreak." A thoughtful pause. "And Sideswipe."

There wasn't any answer.

"Do... Do you hate me?"

"...Not yet."

* * *

It was bitterly cold, and Amanda was shivering.

"We're going back," announced Sunstreaker suddenly. "You're malfunctioning or something."

"It's just a little c-cold," the woman managed, through chattering teeth. "Nothing to really worry about."

"You _humans_ glitch with no reason all the time," Sunstreaker growled. "I don't need to know how _this_ will slag you up. Get in."

"Where... Where are you?" Amanda asked. She'd lost track of his position—stupid her. She needed to pay better attention! And she hated asking. She'd decided not to be afraid of Sunstreaker, but didn't mean she liked him—although she thought, maybe, that she might. She still didn't want to seem vulnerable in front of him.

"Over here," he said.

"Am I getting closer?"

"A little to your right. Further."

Amanda was grateful for the way he treated it. No teasing, no condescension, no special notice at all. After the day she'd had, it was a real breath of fresh air—and one she'd appreciated. She'd had a few too many of the non-metaphorical version of those over the course of the day. It was strange, to have the very air smell different. She was a city person at heart, no question.

It was much warmer inside of him; just getting out of the wind made a huge difference. He'd turned on his heater, too, and she was almost positive that that was only for her benefit. The inside smelled alien and metallic, and the thick air seemed to close in around her, but in a good way.

She was reminded of where she was when the seat belt moved into her hand when her questing fingers reached for it.

...That was still kind of creepy. She was _inside_ him. All the Transformers seemed to think it was normal and natural, but it just seemed wrong to her...

"What do you look like?" she asked, at last.

"I'm the best-looking," came the prompt—and vain—answer. She stifled an inappropriate giggle.

"Really? I... Can't tell."

There was an amused silence. And Amanda was almost sure—_almost_ positive—when Sunstreaker spoke up again that he was joking. "That's too bad. You're missing out."

There was another period of quiet, but it felt easy, comfortable. They jolted their way over the rocks. It seemed like it was taking a while, but that made a certain amount of sense—it wasn't like a car could move as the crow flies, in these mountains.

The sudden boom of an explosion—accompanied by a flare of light, Amanda guessed, but she didn't know—shocked her out of it.

"_Out,_" demanded Sunstreaker, and Amanda obeyed, with alacrity. And then he was gone, and she was sitting on the rough scree of a mountainside, listening to guns and the scrape and squeal of metal. There was screaming, human and Autobot. And Decepticon? That had to be it.

They were scary like this. They hadn't been, earlier. _Megatron_. She could fear that name, now. But he was dead, right? So it wouldn't be _him_.

That wasn't much comfort. It could be anyone else.

The sudden stomping of footsteps, approaching rapidly and then overhead, made her scream. She didn't know—

--End Chapter 8--


	9. Chapter 9

**And Eyes That I Might See**

**Chapter Nine**

By Dreaming of Everything, betaed by mmouse15

**Disclaimer**:

**Author's Notes**: Looking back, it's hard to imagine that this whole thing started out as a oneshot I never planned to continue... Now, of course, it's a nine-chapter series of character studies, and there's even something like a _plot_. I've had fun writing it! And I hope everyone's had fun reading it.

So now it's over. One last chapter (nominally for Ironhide, who doesn't get a full chapter all to himself because he tagged along with Ratchet's) to tie things up and settle all the loose edges. ...And to resolve that cliffhanger from chapter eight. (I am kind of mean sometimes.)

...And I got this chapter out reasonably fast, too! It is also the longest chapter I've written so far. I had more to say than I usually do.

* * *

Where was Sunstreaker? Amanda didn't think he was anywhere nearby. She felt afraid, and exposed. Was that him, the engine? Or was it a Decepticon? The way things were, it didn't need to be one, because she could die on _accident_, all it would take was a Transformer misstepping or just not noticing her, or falling if they were shot—or getting shot on accident, anything. She was _helpless_ and she couldn't see and she could guess but she didn't know for sure how she was going to get away, or even if she should—what if she got lost, alone in the mountains at night without any warm clothes, water or food, or anyway to defend herself? There were bears and cougars, for all she knew—and she couldn't see well, she couldn't move fast, even if she tried, and that risked breaking an ankle...

Something moved, and Amanda tried to turn around too fast, tense almost to the point of panic. It wrenched her neck, and she almost cried out at the pain but didn't, biting her lip, hard, instead.

Should she say something? What if it wasn't an Autobot? What if they didn't notice her? What if it wasn't anything at all—

There were Autobot—or Decepticon—steps, slamming into the ground around her. She screamed, but there wasn't any reply, so Amanda huddled in on herself, pushing into the ground, willing herself to be _gone,_ to be _home_, for this to all disappear! But it didn't, of course, because even though parts of her day had felt like bad science fiction, it wasn't. This was real, this was where she was.

There was another booming explosion, painfully loud, much closer this time: the shock ran through her body, and she felt a brief wave of heat. She screamed again, but tried to stop herself. Who would hear? If the wrong person took notice...

And now there was screaming, off in the distance. Amanda couldn't tell if it was because of pain, or something else. She didn't _want_ to know. This way, she could decide what she wanted.

Was that an approaching engine? She eased herself up on her arms, trying to catch the noise again, because she was going to be caught unawares no matter what, but she wanted whatever advanced warning she could get—

A car. It pulled to a halt next to her, engine surprisingly quiet.

"Get in," said a voice Amanda thought was Mirage's.

"Mirage?"

"Yes. We don't have time: hurry." He sounded calm even as he sounded urgent, like this was something he'd done a hundred times. It could be, Amanda realized, and she stood up—no time to try and brush off the dirt—and moved towards the sound of the idling engine, trying to keep from tripping on the rutted dirt of the field they were in.

"Who was with you?" asked Mirage, after a period of time had passed. Amanda's heart rate was starting to slow a little; she was calming down. "Did you get out there by yourself?"

"No," she said, quiet, fingers fiddling with a fold of her sleeve, tracing the ridged hemming tucked under the cuff. "I was with Bluestreak."

"Are you sure?" asked Mirage, sounding politely disbelieving, questioning. "Bluestreak left you on your own?"

"Oh—no," Amanda said. She could see how that would sound ridiculous. "He left me with Sunstreaker when he left for patrol. Then Sunstreaker left me. ...I think he forgot about me." That was true, and if it had been under other circumstances, that would have been an unpleasant thought—but there had been (there was) a battle, and that took precedence.

There was a distinctly disapproving silence.

"Thank you," said Amanda.

"You're welcome."

"...I'm sorry you're getting all dirty."

"That's fixable." The implications seemed to be that the kind of damage Amanda could have taken _wouldn't_ have been reparable, necessarily.

There was another long wait.

"I can't drive you any closer," said Mirage unexpectedly. "I need to return to the battlefield. Wait here. Someone will be along shortly."

"Thank you," said Amanda again, clambering out, awkwardly, when she heard the door open, a rush of bitter night air rushing to meet her.

Mirage turned, she assumed—there was movement—and then stopped.

"I'm glad you weren't damaged," he said soberly, voice much closer than she'd expected—she jumped a little, but tried to hide it. She didn't know how well she succeeded. One cold metal fingertip reached out to tap, very gently, against the back of her hand, and then there was movement again, and Mirage was walking, then running away.

Amanda smiled, but her smile faded quickly. Her teeth began to chatter.

She was happy to hear her name called out. Was that Mikaela?

* * *

Amanda was given a sandwich and a seat around the fire, along with an ill-fitting coat and a slightly scratchy hat. Considering the circumstances, she wasn't going to complain.

"Are you okay?" asked someone—Phenomena? She wasn't sure. She asked.

"Phenomena? Is that you asking?"

"Oh! Yes, it is. Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine. A little dirty, I guess." Some of the grit had worked its way into the gap between her shirt and jeans, and ended up caught between skin and denim. It was a really unpleasant sensation. "How are you?"

"Fine. I've had it easier than you, though—how close were you to the battle?"

"...A lot closer than I wanted to be." Amanda shivered at the memory, still far too recent. "Mirage brought me back, though."

"That's good," said Phenomena, sounding amazed and a little nervous. "You know, you're probably in shock."

"Probably," agreed Amanda.

"I am, too. Would you like another sandwich?"

"Yes," said Amanda, thankful. She felt _hollow_ she was so hungry. She didn't even complain about the quality of the food. It hadn't improved much, but hunger really was the best seasoning.

* * *

Amanda was slightly confused when she woke up, not quite sure where she was for a few minutes before her memories of the day before reasserted themselves.

The Autobots. The mountains. The Decepticon attack.

Last night, being given a sleeping bag, and assigned a small tent. She hadn't taken off her clothes, just felt her way into bed and fallen asleep. It had taken a long time, too long, fading adrenalin bolstered by the explosions she could still hear—like thunder—keeping her awake.

What time was it? She had no idea. No use but to find out.

She struggled a little with the tent zipper but managed it eventually, climbing out into the day. It was raining a little, just a light mist. She combed her fingers through her hair and tried to figure out where she was, and how to get back. Or how to find someone to follow around, if nothing else. That was kind of pathetic, but she wasn't someplace she knew. She didn't have her cane, and it wasn't like walking around city streets. She could do that, and she was just _fine_ when she was at home, in her apartment. She didn't need any help there.

But out here, she did.

It kind of sucked. She wanted her _independence_ back. Even more than she wanted her apartment, her own bed, her own food—all of it. She wanted to be home.

Not much to do but wait to see if someone would show up, eventually. She didn't want to risk getting lost, not after last night.

Amanda hoped someone came soon. She was hungry.

* * *

It didn't take long for someone to show up—Amanda could hear their footsteps, probably before they saw her, because they didn't call out or anything—which was good, because it did something to knock her out of her self-pitying and indulgent mood. She complained vociferously whenever the rest of the world pulled the "poor little blind girl" routine, so she could hardly pull the same thing _herself—_

"Are you Amanda?" asked a voice—young, male, unfamiliar and comfortable: he wasn't on edge, whoever he was—and she jumped a little despite herself, even though she'd heard the approaching footsteps.

"Ah—yes, that is, I am," she said, sounding awkward and flustered even to her own ears. "I'm sorry. Who are you?" She really hoped it wasn't someone she'd been introduced to already. She didn't think so, but you never knew...

"Oh, right, I should have thought—I'm James Blackwell. It's nice to meet you. I'm a volunteer medic, and the, er, Autobots sent me to make sure everyone else here makes it out. Apparently they got most people out earlier today, but they left whoever was still asleep behind, because it wasn't _urgent_. I would have been here earlier, but I got called away for a little while—sorry about that. But I think everything else is packed up and ready to go, so I should probably start waking everyone up. And the—doctor-robot, Racket?—yeah, he said that the sleeping pills he gave to a few of them should be wearing off, so—yeah, I mean, yes, that's about the sum of things."

"Nice to meet you, too," Amanda said, a little dazed. "What's going on? We're leaving?"

"Oh, right—yeah, everything's worked out. That big fight last night? It was the other group of robots, those Deception-thingies. They rushed us, I guess, and it was—well, word was it was messy, but I don't think there were many casualties. We were lucky, the robots mostly kept us out of the thick of things. Well, there was a hairy moment when one of them made it over to the hillside we were shooting on, and then there was the whole mix-up with the plane that really wasn't, but I don't think there's more than five dead, which is _damn_ good, let me tell you. Okay, so I'm getting off-track, but we're free to go, so you're getting shipped back home. You're probably ready for it, huh? I mean, I know I am, and I had the _choice_ to get out here, really, when all's said and done."

"I'm ready to go home, yeah," Amanda said, feeling too-tired and—empty.

"Let's get you there," James said, voice warm. "C'mon."

* * *

After that there was just the hustle and bustle of departure. It was all very complicated and a little bit too overwhelming for Amanda to handle, at that moment. She sat it out as best as she could, and said her goodbyes to everyone. She managed to find a few seconds to trade telephone numbers with Phenomena, and then with Jerry, and she said good-byes to everyone, even a few of the Autobots: Bluestreak, of course, and Mirage.

She did end up stumbling—not entirely literally—across Sunstreaker, as well, but she snubbed him. Pointedly. No way in _Hell_ she was going to talk to him, after he'd left her like that. On a _battlefield._ When she couldn't _see._

But the rest of the Autobots and several of the normal people she'd met—Sam, Mikaela, Sarah—were busy, trying to straighten everything out.

Apparently, the government hadn't managed to suppress all of the video that had been taken during the attack, and several clips had ended up on YouTube, and been viewed by enough people that there was, essentially, no way to keep the Autobot secret quiet anymore.

In short, the shit had hit the fan.

So that made sense.

Amanda wished she'd get the chance to give her goodbyes to everyone else she'd met—excluding Sunstreaker and Sideswipe—but it looked like it just wasn't in the cards. That was alright.

Mostly, she just wanted to go home.

* * *

It wasn't until she was mostly home that Amanda realized that she was riding in Ironhide, which was kind of a shock. Not necessarily a _bad_ one, though. She was getting used to the Autobots. Some of them had been very nice, after all.

...Ironhide was not a robot that should ever really have the word "nice" applied to him. "Gruff," maybe. "Bad with people" was a pretty good one for him, too.

"You're the human who ended up in the middle of the battlefield."

"Uh-huh." Amanda was struggling to even keep her eyes open, the rhythm of the driving lulling her into sleep, irresistibly.

"_Stupid._"

That shook her awake. "Hey! It wasn't _me_, you know, I'm not stupid! I didn't _like_ being stranded out there, with—with all sorts of _things_ going on around me, and the explosions, and—and—you know, even if it was one of you and you just misstepped, I'd be dead! I didn't enjoy that experience, thank-you-very-much!"

"Huh. Why _were _you out there, then, huh?"

"Huh _yourself_. Sunstreaker stranded me, the bastard—just _dumped_ me in the middle of the field and left. God _damn_ it—"

"Figures." Ironhide did not sound particularly disapproving; rather, he sounded slightly impressed. "He's a violent fragger."

Amanda pointedly kept silent. She was aware that she probably had an unattractive, unladylike scowl stamped across her face, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"But I guess if you're a broken human, it would be unpleasant. Optimus'll ream him out."

"—I'm _not_ broken!"

"Don't you yell at me, youngling!"

"I'm a grown adult!"

"Act like it!"

"You called me _broken!_"

"You do not function properly! And you turned down an offer to try and fix the problem!"

"Okay, so I'm disabled! Whatever! I'm fine with that, actually! As long as I'm not being left in incredibly hazardous situations where I can't see a damn thing and—_and_ I don't care if I'm blind and technically not functioning right! It works for me, I'm fine, I can live my life!" To her utter horror, Amanda started crying, tears dripping down her cheeks. "I may be blind, but at least I'm not an asshole!"

There was a long silence.

"...I apologize," Ironhide grunted at last, sounding unreasonably sulky.

Once more, Amanda found herself biting back hysterical giggles. Even though she was still crying.

* * *

She'd calmed down by the time they reached her apartment, so Amanda offered a subdued good-bye into the thick silence that had settled, once she'd pulled herself out of the too-tall truck and landed, unsteadily, on her feet.

She was surprised when the Autobot returned the nicety.

"I'll see you," he said, gruffly. "Maybe. Good luck. And—I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize," Amanda said, not entirely meaning it, although she wanted to.

Ironhide revved his engine, making her start a little—hopefully subtly, she couldn't tell—and then there were a few more minutes of awkward silence, and then he left. Amanda made her way home.

* * *

It was a huge relief to be back in her apartment, where she had her own food—and _decent_ sandwiches, or at least sandwich makings, and hot food if she felt like cooking it, leftovers if she didn't—and everything was arranged the way it was _supposed_ to be, so that she didn't trip over anything like, like a rock or a rut or a freaking _tree_. Thank God for civilization! That was Amanda's thought as she lay back on her bed, too tired to even bother changing into her pajamas. Instead she just lay there for just over half an hour, almost drifting off to sleep.

Before she was fully lost to unconsciousness Amanda dragged herself upright, crawled out of her jeans and then got under the covers, wrapping herself up in them tightly before she fell fast asleep.

Even the nightmares weren't very bad. She'd have time for them later; in the meantime, she just needed to _sleep_.

* * *

Life was getting worked out. It was nice but—boring, if Amanda was honest. Before, she'd been _okay_ with boring. It meant knowing what was going to happen.

She missed the people she'd met. She'd talked to Phenomena on the phone a little, but it was hard, because they weren't supposed to talk about the Autobots—officially, they weren't supposed to talk about the Autobots at _all_, but they really weren't allowed to over the phone, even if they were allowed to break the rules a little when they met up in person. In a suitably private place, of course.

It was like this big, huge secret that she was _dying_ to talk about with someone, anyone, but she _couldn't_.

...Well, maybe it wasn't 'like' that because that was what it was exactly, really.

Which didn't make it any easier.

* * *

Her phone was beeping; she had a new message. With a sigh, Amanda went over to listen to it.

_'Hi, Amanda, it's me—Sideswipe? Yeah, I was told to apologize and they're probably right, I guess I was a bit out of line when I—hang on, what's that? _Whatever_, Ironhide, I'm doing it now, shut up you slagger and—right, yeah. So, sorry, Amanda, I hope things are—'_

There were the sounds of what was, presumably, a brief tussle between Cybertronians, clanking metal and a few muffled noises and a brief burst of static, then some clunking before Sunstreaker's considerably-less-carefree (and considerably more sulky) voice entered from the speakers.

_'Amanda. It's Sunstreaker.'_

And then there was a pause. A long one, if you considered it was a phone message.

_'Sideswipe's an ass.'_ There was a muffled shout of _'Am not!'_ and then another clang.

_'...I'm sorry too.'_ Then there was the click of a phone being hung up, and the message ended.

It was...Amanda paused, considering her emotions. She was still angry—furious—disappointed—no,_ angry_ with Sunstreaker, but his apology had sounded genuine.

...Unlike his brother's. For the most part.

* * *

"_Hey, Amanda—it's Jerry. Um, you might not remember me, but that one weekend with the—up in the mountains? You know..."_

"I know," Amanda replied promptly, fiddling with the phone cord. "And don't worry—I remember you. How are you?"

"_I'm good, just fine—how about you?"_

He sounded slightly nervous, which was worrisome, considering the circumstances they had met under. Was this somehow related to all of that...?

"Oh, I've been good—a few nightmares, but I'm settling in. It's good to be home."

"_For me, too. Um, I know that we've barely met, but would you like to meet me for coffee some time?"_

Amanda paused. She didn't think he meant for them to meet up like friends. Actually, she kind of thought it was almost...

"Like a _date?_"

And then she winced, because that had come out totally wrong.

"_...Yes?"_

That...explained the nerves, didn't it. He was a brave man, not hanging up on her after her comment—'like a date'? She might as well be in middle school—

"Yes—yes, I'd like to go! Um. Thank you." She was smiling, probably like an idiot. She didn't really care. "I'd love to. Do you know a good café to meet up at?"

* * *

Amanda was walking to the store, cane in one hand, and she was feeling remarkably at ease with the whole thing, because at least she was not under attack and there was real honest concrete under here feet. It wasn't always perfectly smooth, but it was a _lot_ better than mountainsides.

She didn't even realize that anyone or anything was next to her—other than the usual traffic of the street—until someone spoke up.

"Amanda?"

"Ye—_Mirage?_"

"Yes," said the Autobot.

There was a slight pause.

"What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. I...wanted to see how you were doing."

"Oh! Well, thank you. Are you—how are you doing?"

"I am well."

"Are—are you just driving around with, with no one in you? I mean, I know you don't need anyone but yourself to _drive_ but—but what about...?

"I understand. No, I am capable of projecting a holographic image of a human, as camouflage. All Autobots are."

"Oh."

"But it would probably be best if we went somewhere else to talk."

Amanda blushed. "Oh! Of course!"

"Thank you. I'm to your left, that's the passenger side door. A little bit further. Yes, that's me."

The young woman giggled a little, nervously, as she slid into the seat, for no real reason other than she needed to say _something._

"This is a little strange."

"Probably," confessed Mirage, a sudden note of lightness entering his tone, and Amanda laughed again, this time not out of nerves or awkwardness but instead with surprised amusement. "How are you doing, Amanda?"

"Oh, fine—you know? Life goes on—I mean, there were nightmares for a while, but they've mostly stopped." She paused, because there wasn't really anywhere you could go with that statement. "It really made me—reorder my priorities, I guess."

There was a silence. Amanda fiddled a little, feeling suddenly awkward.

"...Um. Yeah, I guess that was kind of a weird thing to say."

"No—I, ah, I understand." There was a brief, almost sheepish, pause. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. My manners are—lacking. It's been a long war."

"Oh, no, I understand! It's nothing. It's, um," Amanda paused this time, embarrassed. "I'm still having some trouble getting used to. Um. You?"

"I understand." Mirage's voice sounded very—composed. Always. But Amanda almost thought she heard resignation.

"—What's it like on Earth?"she asked, abruptly. "For you."

"It's good," replied Mirage, noncommittally.

"Isn't it...lonely?"

"That's to be expected, right?"

"But it shouldn't be!"

"Well, thank you. Not everyone feels that that's true."

"Oh. I'm—sorry, then."

There was a long pause. "I have a harder time forming connections than many other mechs do," Mirage said suddenly, voice matter-of-fact. "I don't reach out easily."

"_Oh_," said Amanda, eyes wide. Because—that was what he was—

Doing.

"If you'd like, you can get out, now," said Mirage politely. "We're at a park, and there's nobody here to see anything."

"It's okay," said Amanda, slowly. "If you don't want me to leave, I don't need to. I'm—I'm happy? If you are?"

"Thank you," said Mirage again. "I feel the same. You're free to do as you please—I'm happy either way."

"That's not very helpful," murmured Amanda, clasping her hands slightly nervously, but she didn't really mean it.

The silence dragged on a few minutes more.

"I'm sorry you were pulled into our war," said Mirage finally. "That's largely why I sought you out again. I wanted to apologize. It's not your fight, and you should not have been involved."

"I'm not," Hope said slowly. "Sorry, that is." She paused for a brief second, lips pressed together into a thin line as she concentrated, struggling to find the words. "I—think it was good, in the end. I got to know _you_. And the others, too—some of them. _Most_ of them. I—cliché though it may be, I'm probably a better person for it, now. I mean, you can't go through life-threatening ordeals without having it affect you at least a _little_, right? I—I think so, at least. And I mean, there's been some nightmares, but...but it could be a lot worse. And you did it _saving_ me, too! So there's that."

There was a brief silence. Amanda felt a blush start to bloom on her cheeks, until they were burning with embarrassment. "...That...that sounded kind of stupid, didn't it?"

"No," said Mirage immediately, not that Amanda was convinced that that meant anything. He seemed to be the sort of person—robot, mech, _whatever_, he was still a _person, _just not a human one—either way, he was the sort of person to be polite no matter what, for whatever reason, which did absolutely nothing to make her feel like she _hadn't_ just made a ridiculous, blathering idiot out of herself...

Not, she was forced to admit, that that was anything new.

Ohhh no. In fact, what with all the practice she seemed to be getting in around the Autobots and all, she could probably earn an Olympic medal in ridiculous, idiotic blathering. _Several_ of them even because she seemed to be using untapped depths of _uselessness_ and also finding inventive and innovative new ways to humiliate herself and really if she could do this on her _own_, well then she would probably be incredible if she ever found herself a teacher and—

—and her brain really needed to learn to shut the fuck up and _how did she say what she needed to without making even more of an ass out of herself?_

...Yeah. She had no idea.

"Actually, I'm glad you feel that way," Mirage continued, which made Amanda pause in her internal rant, freezing up. "It is...lonely, to be an Autobot right now. Our race is dying, and while Earth is a very nice planet, it's not _home_."

"I understand," Amanda whispered. "A little. I think." She'd done a little traveling—not much—and she'd liked it, but Mirage was right: it hadn't been _home_. And she'd just been in another culture, not another world... Everyone around her had been human...

"You can find a place here, though. You're...you're making friends." Amanda forced herself not to turn the final part of her statement into a question, and instead made it all rush together into a probably incomprehensible tangle of syllables, and also her face was burning and she was probably _utterly ridiculous_ to look at and it wasn't like there was anything she could do about it and oh _God_ there was no way to avoid the implications in her sentence, because she was as good as saying that _she_ was his friend which was just so blatantly, bald-facedly _presumptuous_ and what—

"I...I would like to make friends," and was it just Amanda's imagination, or was he maybe implying that he'd like to be her friend? "Here on Earth."

...And why was this giving her flashbacks to the third grade and "making friends," which at the time meant going up to someone and asking, in so many words, if they wanted to?

_Gah_. It was embarrassing.

"I _am_ your friend?" This time, Amanda couldn't help but make it a question.

"...If you'd have me?"

"I'd be honored," she said, reflexively, and that was true.

* * *

Amanda was happy. She really, really was. Maybe her life wasn't normal—Sunstreaker was going to pick her up in an hour, she was going to meet up with him for the first time since she'd returned home, and after that she was going to have dinner with her maybe-boyfriend, who'd she met while hiding from evil giant robots—and it certainly wasn't perfect, but—

But she was happy. Really, really happy. Her life wasn't normal, but she didn't _want_ it to be. She didn't even want it to be perfect.

She liked things being just the way they were.

--End--


End file.
